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• Happy endings are all alike
  Uncompromisingly frank from its opening line, Sandra Scoppettone’s (1936-) depiction of the love affair between teenage girls Jaret and Peggy was a much-needed riposte to 1950s lesbian pulp, such as the novels of Ann Bannon and Vin Packer. As one reviewer put it, “The story 1) is not preachy, 2) does not kill off either girl in the end, 3) is not syrupy”. The ground-breaking ‘Happy Endings Are All Alike’, chosen as an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, was first published by Harper & Row in 1978, preceding Nancy Garden’s ‘Annie on My Mind’ by four years. Scoppettone is known also for her crime-writing, as a playwright and for her collaboration with Louise Fitzhugh (author of ‘Harriet the Spy’) on the 1961 picture book ‘Suzuki Beane’, a counterculture parody of the ‘Eloise’ books set in Greenwich Village.