Djuna Barnes' New York - Softcover

Literary-minded browsers will revel in these 42 articles published in New York newspapers between 1913 and 1919. Barnes (1892-1982) trains the novelistic powers later borne out in Nightwood on the individuals who infused the city with color and verve, and reports on social phenomena, from the tango palaces of Coney Island to an Upper East Side private club for domestic servants. Carrie Chapman Catt is seen conducting a seminar for feminists: "Organize yourself," she exhorts, "and the country will organize." Barnes eavesdrops on artistes in Greenwich Village and comments, "There are moments in the lives of all of us, or shall I say some of us, that must be lived in French." Visiting the radical Wobblies, the Industrial Workers of the World, she notes with characteristic amused irony that "Despair betrays itself in epigrams; when one wants to build, one begins to gather." And, demonstrating perhaps excessive zeal, Barnes persuades a doctor to force-feed her so that she may accurately describe the ordeals of the British suffragettes.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Lesser known now than many of her "Lost Generation" expatriate cohorts, Barnes was nevertheless a popular writer and personality in her time. This book contains many of the pieces she wrote for news dailies and magazines between 1911 and 1931. As you might have guessed from the title, the selections all center around New York. As LJ 's review of Barnes's 1985 Interviews ( LJ 5/1/85) commented, this volume too "will interest general readers as well as history and literature specialists."-- MR
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.