The Outside Thing by Hannah Roche

It's a book this one, The Outside Thing by Hannah Roch

e that in the intention of the author wants to be an invitation at paying "closer attention to experimental modernism's popular heritage" of a fiction the lesbian one that marked the first part of the century.

Roche takes in consideration three writers of the genre: Gertrude Stein, Radclyff Hall and Djuna Barnes.

If love stories have always been a central thematic of writing, these authors will direct the attention to the lesbism love-stories sometimes starting from an apparent heterosexual love-story although what these writers did the most was mixing elements of modernism, letting us see a different view of life.

If Gertrude Stein was lucky with his books, different story was the one experienced by Hall. Hall was pretty well introduced in the upper class of London. Her house was populated by eminent people and her parties still remembered and appreciated. Her most famous book The Well of Loneliness didn't pass good times although it was a big succes and it became one of the most important books for lesbians. This book has also known a trial and Virgina Virgina Woolf participated at the first one as witness.

I thank Columbia University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori