Djuna Barnes Overview

Hollywood never made a movie about Djuna Barnes, and by now there's no point, since the only person who could have played her was Greta Garbo. Like Garbo, Barnes was extremely beautiful, extremely talented, occasionally lesbian, and all she wanted was to be alone. In fact, she probably never would have allowed her life to be filmed at all. But it's too bad, because hers is such an interesting story. Born in 1892, she was raised and home-schooled on a Long Island farm by her parents, Ward and Elizabeth (who later split), and her maternal grandmother, Zadel. The household was many things: creative, progressive, matriarchal, and above all, sexually weird. Zadel was a proponent of free love and Ward was a polygamist. When Barnes was 16 years old, her father gave her to a neighbor to be initiated sexually, an experience she found quite traumatizing. Not long after that, Barnes left for art school in New York. She soon became part of the artsy Greenwich Village scene, supporting herself as a journalist. Her first serious publication was a slim volume of poetry and drawings entitled "The Book of Repulsive Women" (1915). After a few years, she moved to Paris and began her literary career in earnest, as part of the thriving expatriate scene. In 1928 she published "Ryder," a stylized, fictionalized family history. The same year she also published "Ladies Almanack," a roman a clef to the Parisian lesbian community, of which she and her partner, artist Thelma Wood, were celebrated members. Wood was the great love of her life, but theirs was a disastrous affair. It became the subject of her most important work, "Nightwood," published in 1936. Known for its disjointed narrative and highly stylized, poetic prose, "Nightwood" is generally considered the best example of female-voiced Modernism. Following its publication, Barnes moved back to Greenwich Village, where she lived out the rest of her life as a near-recluse. She produced only one more major work, a play called "Antiphon," and spent her days calling the cops on young lesbians who came to pay her homage. She died in 1982.