I couldn't help wondering about the Jeckyll-and-Hyde literary career of William Arthur Neubauer. In 1952 he wrote Remembered Moment and eight other novels of sexual misbehavior. But in the same year he published The Voice of Love (under his own name), A Home for Mary (under the pseudonym Rebecca Marsh), and A Heart for Elaine (under the pseudonym Norma Newcomb). I haven't read any of his romances, but I'm guessing they were sweet tales of triumphant love. Who was the real Neubauer? It would be interesting to know.
Remembered Moment by Norman Bligh. Star Guidance Venus (1952), 129 pp.
Anne Arnold, 25 and living in a small town north of Santa Cruz, is enjoying her life. She has a loving husband, Sam, several successful businesses, and the presidency of the local decency league. Then she receives a letter from her former lover, Bill. He has returned from the Korean War and is determined to win her back. Anne is torn between fidelity to her cozy marriage and longing for the excitement of her earlier affair. Her decision may be affected by what happens when Sam spends a few days with her promiscuous sister, Paula.
What distinguishes this novel from other, more mainstream, stories of marital infidelity is its focus on sex. The plot -- beginning with a flashback to the "remembered moment," Anne's affair with Bill -- turns on sexual interludes. These are described neither at length nor with explicitness. But they may have excited readers fifty years ago because they do not reflect the moral weaknesses of their characters. The author presents the sexual activity as natural and easily rationalized. Bill, for instance, has dreamed of Anne through two years of war and has good reason to want his old girlfriend back. Even Paula, who moves from partner to partner, deserves no blame. She is merely the victim of an illness, nymphomania. So the book is of some historical interest in that it sought a mass audience and described the changing morality of its time.