Fascinating facts about Djuna Barnes, author of Nightwood
By Jon Macy | On February 22, 2025 | Comments (0)
Djuna Barnes was a Modernist writer whose various talents and eccentricities made her unique. She went to great lengths to protect her privacy, so it’s not surprising that she had a whole closet full of skeletons. These fascinating facts about Djuna Barnes are presented by Jon Macy, creator of the graphic novel Djuna: The Extraordinary Life of Djuna Barnes.
Childhood trauma armored Djuna with a razor sharp wit, and an almost Ahab-and-the-whale, determination to succeed as a writer. Immensely talented, she was a journalist, poet, artist and novelist.
She became a celebrated star in 1920s Paris along with her friends James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, and Gertrude Stein. Her masterpiece, Nightwood, is one of the greatest lesbian novels ever written, and her influence on modern writers reverberates into the present.
Much of her allure comes from the mystery surrounding her self-isolation. Why did she turn her back on the world to live as a recluse for the last forty years of her life? Many have tried to find out, myself included. Here are a few things that struck me during my search to understand Djuna Barnes’ complex truth.
Djuna grew up in a cult-like family
Djuna grew up in a free love bohemian cult that abused her and then forced her into marriage at seventeen to get rid of her. It would be easy to portray her family as villains — they were in many ways, but they also had charm, ambition, and talent to spare.
Djuna’s grandmother, Zadel Barnes, was a pioneering journalist and activist. In 1879, she founded a London salon for writers, actors, abolitionists, reformers, and queers of all kinds. Her sphere included; William Morris, Eleanor Marx, Victoria Woodhull, and of course, Oscar Wilde.
Zadel was a talented grifter and free love advocate. She gifted Djuna with a wealth of literary intelligence, and taught her how female journalists can sidestep propriety when it suited their mission.
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She embellished people’s responses in interviews
In her days as a journalist, Djuna interviewed every famous person in early 1900s New York. Such luminaries included silent film star Alla Nazimova, Ziegfeld, Diamond Jim Brady (who kept his underwear in a safe), Coco Chanel who gave her a dress, and Jack Dempsey, the shy boxer.
She was well paid, but she chafed under the usual assignments. Djuna found celebrities shallow, so she changed their words to sound more engaging. None of them complained because she made them seem wittier than they were.
Djuna preferred to interview the offbeat and downtrodden. She challenged her editors by doing articles on legless elevator men, women cops who liked poetry, and Black acting troupes who could never get a break — people no one else would touch.
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Djuna: The Extraordinary Life of Djuna Barnes by Jon Macy
(Street Noise Books, 2024) is available on Bookshop.org, Amazon*
& wherever books are sold
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She supported her family at age nineteen
Djuna’s father had two wives and many children in the utopian free love commune where she grew up. When her mother divorced her father, Djuna’s fractured half of the family landed in a windowless Bronx tenement, alone and destitute. She was homeschooled and unsocialized, yet fiercely precocious.
She demanded a job from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. She said, “I can write, I can draw, and you would be a fool not to hire me.” The fact that she could interview someone and draw their portrait meant she could get paid twice. Her ungrateful mother and three brothers would never have survived without her.
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A suicide landed right in front of her
The stock market crash of 1929 was devastating to the American expatriates in Europe. The jobs were gone and the reporters, including Djuna, lost everything.
Djuna was on her way to deliver her last article to an editor when a man’s body fell at her feet. He had jumped from the rooftop. His blood was all over the sidewalk and part of his brain splashed onto her fine tailored tweed skirt. She was so upset she had to lay in bed for three days to recover. The article, incidentally, was about fine dining.
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Nightwood was first written as a poem
Djuna Barnes’ masterpiece is her 1936 novel, Nightwood. It was praised by critics as a work of genius exemplifying late Modernism. It is also considered a finest work of lesbian fiction. The novel is famous for its lush poetic quality, often compared to an opera. A little-known fact is that Barnes wrote it in verse, then translated it into prose. She was a poet first, which gave her a uniquely powerful voice that carried into her writing.
It’s also known as the chewiest read in the English language, even surpassing James Joyces’s Ulysses for its unfathomable experimentations. Comparative literature professors have been known to assign Nightwood as a way to weed out the weaker students in their class. Once you know that Joyce was poking fun at us the whole time, Ulysses lets you in on its joke. Djuna Barnes poked society with intricate daggers.
She saved Patchin Place in Greenwich Village
Djuna lived on a little gated street in Greenwich Village called Patchin Place. It was cobblestoned, with beautiful ailanthus trees, and even had one of the last two original gas street lamps in New York City. Many famous people lived there, including e.e. cummings, Marlon Brando, and John Reed. By the 1970s, Djuna was the last one.
A developer tried to buy the charming little cul-de-sac intending to tear it down and build condos. At a public meeting, Djuna shouted down the developers and stopped the proceedings. She bellowed, in her high mid-Atlantic tone, “If lost, where would all the young muggers go to practice their trade?” Patchin Place was saved.
Ingmar Bergman almost made an adaptation of Nightwood
Djuna was incredibly difficult to work with; her legacy was sacred to her. The only people she respected were James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, and Ingmar Bergman. Seven film companies approached her for the rights to adapt Nightwood into a film, but she always turned them down. All except Bergman. She trusted him, and there was talk of Greta Garbo starring in it, which Djuna liked.
If the film had been made, Djuna Barnes would have been a household name, and her novel would have come back into print. However, it didn’t come to pass. It’s another tragedy for Djuna, and new generations who would have discovered her if Bergman could have brought her vision to the cinema.
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Djuna was a major recluse who hated disruptions
Djuna was a recluse. She had lived in the same studio apartment for forty years. Few were allowed to enter, and those who did, like Anaïs Nin, inevitably wrote about the experience. Djuna was followed around Greenwich village by students doing their dissertations on her, but she chased them away waving her cane. She called them, “post graduate termites.”
Carson McCullers stuffed flowers in her mailbox. Djuna could be heard from her second story window saying, “whoever is ringing this bell please go the hell away.”
Cordelia Pearson tried to wheedle her way into Djuna’s life by hiring her to paint her portrait. Djuna refused, but complained about it to e.e. cummings and his wife. Djuna put a stop to all the shenanigans, but the woman wouldn’t give up. After endless love letters, she sat crying on Djuna’s doorstep until the police were called to take her away.
Even Djuna’s window cleaner would interrupt her writing by telling her that he had read her book, but didn’t really like it.
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The famous photo purported to be Djuna isn’t actually of her
A famous photograph of two fashionable women in front of a café in 1920s Paris has caption that always reads: “Djuna Barnes and Solita Solano in front of the Le Dome.” It is not them. They’re actually two Parisian models photographed by Maurice Branger (1874–1950) in front of Le Pure Café.
I have carefully studied the angular nose of Djuna Barnes for the last five years. Her clothes. Her style. The wicked black pumps. None of these match the nose, clothes, and style Djuna carefully cultivated to be her signature “genius writer” persona. In the image Djuna is apparently writing her masterpiece at a little iron café table, but it’s with her right hand; she was left handed.
Djuna Barnes is ready for her comeback. It is my hope that my graphic novel biography of this esteemed author assists in preserving her renown, and introduces her literary works to a new generation of readers.
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Contributed by Jon Macy, a graphic novel writer and artist. His most recent work, Djuna: The Extraordinary Life of Djuna Barnes, is now available from Street Noise Books. He admits he might be a little obsessed with Djuna Barnes. Find him at Jon Macy Graphic Novels and on Instagram, @nefarismo
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