When publishing her novel "Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing" in 1965, the novelist May Sarton feared that writing openly about lesbianism would lead to a diminution of the previously established value of her work. "The fear of homosexuality is so great that it took courage to write "Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing,"" she said, "to write a novel about a woman homosexual who is not a sex maniac, a drunkard, a drug-taker, or in any way repulsive, to portray a homosexual who is neither pitiable nor disgusting, without sentimentality ..."