The Gallery

New York/London: Harper & Brothers. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. (c.1947). Later Printing (K-W). Hardcover. [good sound copy, very slight bumping to bottom corners; jacket has shallow chips at top of front panel and top of spine, small tears with minor paper loss at front corners]. Novel depicting military life (including its homosexual aspects) in Allied-occupied North Africa and Naples in 1944. The author's first book, it was both critically and commercially successful at the time of its original publication, but its enduring reputation rests mostly on its frank depiction of gay life, particularly the 28-page chapter entitled "Momma," which takes place in a gay hangout for soldiers and civilians in Naples. From Wikipedia: "Without sentimentality, Burns explored the average man's resentment of the military, his struggle to assert his individuality within the complex war effort, the tension between officers and enlisted men, the psychological effects of dislocation, economic and social inequality between the Americans and those they defeated, the experience of homosexual military personnel, and the popular life of Naples in 1944 under the Allied occupation." Gore Vidal wrote of the book, in 1965: "Of the well known books of the war, I have always thought that only Burns's was authentic." Burns himself, alas, had flamed out long before Vidal's assessment: after publishing two more novels, neither of them successful, he died in 1953 at the age of 36. (The "K-W" code dates this printing to October 1947; the book was published in June of that year.) .