Smoke, and Other Early Stories

Plot

fiction, ed w/intro by Douglas Messerli

"In Djuna Barnes’s posthumously collected Smoke and Other Early Stories, the world never stops playing its malevolent tricks. Barnes learned as much during a childhood of emotional and sexual abuse, and she visits this disillusionment upon her characters in a rollicking mix of suspense and humor and plot twists, while extracting material from her life in bohemian Greenwich Village. First published in newspapers in the 1910s, Smoke's playful slice-of-life stories retaliate against life's sudden shifts through a frank voice disguising irony and formal play. Smoke holds life culpable for the inexplicable, and Barnes's plots force us to recognize the rules (and roles) that limit a person's potential."

--Patrick Henry, The Short Review