Why Gale Wilhelm Stopped

Gale Wilhelm, 1935. In August, we’ll be publishing a new edition of Gale Wilhelm’s 1935 novel, We Too Are Drifting, in the Recovered Books series from Boiler House Press. Despite the fact that We Too Are Drifting is a landmark in literature, the first mainstream American novel to depict lesbian relationships without moralistic or leering overtones, this will be its first publication since Barbara Grier’s Naiad Press reissued it in 1984. In that edition, Grier wrote, “We know just enough about Gale Wilhelm to be tantalized.” Grier sketched Wilhelm’s biography from her birth in Oregon in 1908 through the start and apparent end of her literary career, until the trail faded in Oakdale, California in the early 1950s, supposedly with the death of her partner, Helen Page. Grier concluded by issuing the plea, “At this writing we are looking for her, or for proof of her death.” Gale Wilhelm, 1985. Wilhelm contacted Grier after the book came out, informing the publisher that she was living in…