Recent Blog
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Welcome
Hi. I’m Maggie, Victor’s great-niece and the Executive Director of the Victor J. Banis Family Foundation. Prior to Victor’s passing in 2019, I knew he was a writer and had read a few of his books. We had a few discussions about his books and writing but nothing in depth. It wasn’t until after he…
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Notes on So Sweet, So Soft, So Queer (1965)
With a title that would surely have done numbers on Booktok as a boring 2020s gay romance novel, Victor’s 1965 novel So Sweet, So Soft, So Queer was light years ahead of its time in more ways than one. As far as I can tell, based on its number (PE-344), it was officially Victor’s first…
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Notes on AC-DC Lover (1965)
AC-DC Lover, AC-DC Lover, oh where to begin… This novel is not exactly for the faint of heart in 2025, but you can’t very well get into the subject of Victor’s early catalog without it. First of all, to place it in time: AC-DC Lover was released in 1965 by Private Edition Books, one year…
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AC-DC Lover 1965
AC-DC Lover, Victor Jay, Private Edition Books #PE 346, (1965); (Love’s Pawn, Borgo Press 2012). This is one of Victor’s earliest books and probably my least favorite so far. It is a good example of the pulp books being published before The Why Not; before Earl Kemp and Greenleaf Classics. It’s a really dark story…
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3 Poems in ONE Magazine 1961 & 1962
There is so much to say about ONE Magazine and the fact that MY Uncle was published in that magazine is beyond amazing!! He wrote a total of three poems that were published. First off, a little about ONE Magazine…it was founded in 1952 and born from the Mattachine Society. The magazine ceased publication in…
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Broken Record 1963
Maggie: Okay, I’ve already strayed from my original plan of reviewing Victor’s writing in semi-alphabetical order. After discussing with several people, it has been decided that to best understand Victor as a writer and person, it is best to explore the subject in a more or less chronological order. Now that you have met Ori,…
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An Intro to Victorology
Hello to one and all! This is an inaugural post to lead into a series of posts on pulp history + Victor’s novels that I’m planning to put together as one strain of the foundation’s blog. I want to take at least a moment first to acknowledge who I am and what I’m doing here.…
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The Affairs of Gloria 1965
Okay, so, I’ve already deviated from the original plan. AC/DC Lover is the first if I were to truly go in alphabetical order – but I think it’s appropriate to start with the first book he published (it still starts with an “A”). The Affairs of Gloria published in 1964 by Brandon House, using the…