Diana - (Cutting Edge: Lesbian Life and Literature) by Diana Frederics & Julie L Abraham (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This is the unusual and compelling story of Diana, a tantalizingly beautiful woman who sought love in the strange by-paths of Lesbos. Fearless and outspoken, it dares to reveal that hidden world where perfumed caresses and half-whispered endearments constitute the forbidden fruits in a Garden of Eden where men are never accepted.

This is how Diana: A Strange Autobiography was described when it was published in paperback in 1952. The original 1939 hardcover edition carried with it a Publisher's Note: This is the autobiography of a woman who tried to be normal.

In the book, Diana is presented as the unexceptional daughter of an unexceptional plutocratic family. During adolescence, she finds herself drawn with mysterious intensity to a girl friend. The narrative follows Diana's progress through college; a trial marriage that proves she is incapable of heterosexuality; intellectual and sexual education in Europe; and a series of lesbian relationships culminating in a final tormented triangular struggle with two other women for the individual salvation to be found in a happy couple.

In her introduction, Julie Abraham argues that Diana is not really an autobiography at all, but a deliberate synthesis of different archetypes of this confessional genre, echoing, as it does, more than a half-dozen novels. Hitting all the high and low points of the lesbian novel, the book, Abraham illustrates, offers a defense of lesbian relationships that was unprecedented in 1939 and radical for decades afterwards.

Review Quotes

"[I]t represents more than a collection of essays. It is a helpful, at times profound, mapping of Christians' reflections on their Scriptures."
-"Choice", Recommended,

"Provides a state-of-the-art introduction to how Christian theories of scriptural interpretation have been intimately bound up with beliefs about life with God, examining both the outlooks of movements and periods, and the contributions of great theologians. No one with an interest in theological exegesis of biblical hermeneutics can afford to miss this book."
-David S. Yeago, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary

"This volume does what its title promises: it gives an introduction to Christian theologies of scripture, and it does so very well."
-"Religious Studies Review",

"What does it mean to call biblical writings the 'word of God'? This fine collection of readable essays based on current research gives an excellent overview of Christians' answers to that question from the third century to the present and undermines widespread caricatures and over-simplifications."
-David H. Kelsey, Yale Divinity School

About the Author

Julie L. Abraham (Author)
Julie L. Abraham is Assistant Professor of English and Women's Studies at Emory University.