I Am a Woman

Laura Landon walks out on her overbearing father and a life that never fit, and lands in Manhattan with a typewriter's worth of skills and a secret she can barely admit to herself. By day she works as a secretary; by night she shares an apartment with Marcie, a pretty, careless roommate whose closeness is a slow-burning torment. Then one evening Laura finds her way to a bar in Greenwich Village and meets Beebo Brinker (tall, wry, entirely unashamed) and discovers there is a world where women like her actually exist.

Published as a dime-store paperback in 1959, Ann Bannon's novel became a lifeline passed hand to hand, one of the founding books of lesbian literature. It still reads with startling immediacy: funny, aching, and honest about desire at a time when honesty carried real risk. A pulp classic that turned out to be the real thing.

At roughly 76,900 words, I Am a Woman runs about 8½ hours at 1x narration speed. That figure is an estimate based on a typical narration pace. The exact length depends on the voice and the playback speed you choose.

I Am a Woman is in the public domain, so the complete text is free on Project Gutenberg and LoudReader has the entire Project Gutenberg catalog built in. To listen:

1. Download LoudReader for Mac or iPhone (free, no account).
2. Search for “I Am a Woman” in the built-in catalog and add it to your library.
3. Press play. A natural offline voice reads the book while each word highlights on screen, and your place is saved between sessions.

LoudReader reads with natural offline voices, so the whole book works on a plane or underground. It is fully on-device and private, your library never leaves your device. Listening is unlimited on the free tier.