| Author: | Djuna Barnes | ISBN: | 9780571354672 |
| Publisher: | Faber & Faber | Publication: | January 3, 2019 |
| Imprint: | Faber & Faber | Language: | English |
| Author: | Djuna Barnes |
| ISBN: | 9780571354672 |
| Publisher: | Faber & Faber |
| Publication: | January 3, 2019 |
| Imprint: | Faber & Faber |
| Language: | English |
'I have quite changed my mind. I am going to run away and become a boy.'
In these three stories, written by Djuna Barnes under the pseudonym Lydia Steptoe, three characters find themselves on the brink of a sexual awakening - accompanied by guns, whips, and worldly innuendo.
A fourteen-year-old girl plans to become 'a virago', until her mother intercepts her first tryst by dressing up as her male lover. A boy of the same age is lured into the forest by his father's mistress. A woman of forty falls in love and longs to kill herself, so unbearable is the return of the youth she thought she wanted. 'Alice', she tells herself, 'be a man.'
Barnes makes gender and desire seem slippery and joyful - and makes the fictional Lydia Steptoe seem like a writer for our time.
'I have quite changed my mind. I am going to run away and become a boy.'
In these three stories, written by Djuna Barnes under the pseudonym Lydia Steptoe, three characters find themselves on the brink of a sexual awakening - accompanied by guns, whips, and worldly innuendo.
A fourteen-year-old girl plans to become 'a virago', until her mother intercepts her first tryst by dressing up as her male lover. A boy of the same age is lured into the forest by his father's mistress. A woman of forty falls in love and longs to kill herself, so unbearable is the return of the youth she thought she wanted. 'Alice', she tells herself, 'be a man.'
Barnes makes gender and desire seem slippery and joyful - and makes the fictional Lydia Steptoe seem like a writer for our time.
