After theorizing the usefulness of the notions 'event', 'discourse' and 'horizon of expectation' for understanding the ideological strains present in translated literary texts, this paper analyses the bindings of three gay fictional texts translated from American English into French in the late 1970s. The bindings, which are constituted by the titles, cover photos and back cover blurbs of the translations, are shown to be key sites for the figuring of translated texts as interfaces between competing ideological positions. In particular, a fraught understanding and evaluation of American notions of 'gay' are revealed to structure and permeate the material of the bindings. The discussion concludes with the implications of such an analysis for conceptualizing the complexity of the agency evidenced by translations.