"Allen's book will . . . provide the categories that will deepen our understanding of lesbian relationships and of lesbian fiction." —Lesbian Review of Books "Barnes scholars will . . . want to pick up Carolyn Allen's new book, for it not only offers perceptive readings of Nightwood and the "Little Girl" stories . . . , but traces the example of Barnes's exploration of lesbian power and loss in the fiction of Jeanette Winterson, Rebecca Brown, and the underrated Bertha Harris." —Review of Contemporary Fiction " . . . fascinating . . . [a] fine volume . . . " —Choice "Following Djuna is a fascinating analysis of the textual erotics and lyrical seductions of the work of Djuna Barnes and the writers she influences. This scintillating genealogy of lesbian intertextuality . . . expands the field of lesbian and feminist literary inquiry and concepts of lesbian literary production." —Judith Roof "As lesbian literary history, here is an instant classic." —Jane Marcus "This is an important and necessary book; even further, speaking as an admirer of the writers and literary works it discusses and as a personal expert on lost love, I find Following Djuna irrestible." —Karen Helfrich, Lambda Book Report Carolyn Allen argues for the importance of women's fiction in understanding women's erotics—emotional and sexual exchanges between women.
By naming the Djuna Barnes Tradition, as opposed to the Radclyffe Hall Tradition, the author identifies the power of a certain lesbian romance line in Modern and Postmodern literature and culture - tracing its progress from Bertha Harris to Jeanette Winterson and Rebecca Brown.
