Lover. Bertha Harris
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LOVER
Bertha Harris
with a new Introduction by the author
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
Copyright © 1976, 1993 by Bertha Harris
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harris, Bertha
Lover / Bertha Harris ; with a new introduction by the author.
p. cm. — (The Cutting edge)
ISBN 0-8147-3504-5 (cloth) — ISBN 0-8147-3505-3 (pbk.)
1. Lesbians—Fiction. I. Title. II. Series: Cutting edge
(NewYork, N.Y.)
PS3558.A6426L6 1993
813’.54—dc20 93-17716
CIP
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 4 3 2
PRAISE FOR LOVER
“Violent, funny, beautiful, intelligent.”
—Jane Rule
“Lover is that rare thing, an authentic classic, with passages so lyrical they beg to be read out loud. I have two copies of the 1976 edition, one I have reread until it is frayed and soft with use, the other pristine and locked away, just in case some desperate lover were to steal the first—which they have. Quite a few copies have gone missing since 1976. Thank god someone has finally had the wisdom to reprint Bertha Harris’s opus. Now I can give women copies instead of threatening them if they touch mine.”
—Dorothy Allison
Author of Bastard Out of Carolina
“The re-issuing of Lover marks the return of one of our most brilliant novelistic talents. Bertha Harris’s melancholy comic genius can now be appreciated by a new generation. And the lengthy introduction she has provided, telling the lugubrious story of Daughters Inc. in hilarious, poignant detail, is itself a stunning achievement with all the condensed complexity of a first-rate novella.”
—Martin Duberman
Director of the Center for Lesbian
and Gay Studies (CLAGS) at the CUNY
Graduate School and the author of
Cures and Stonewall
“Harris, an American equivalent of Monique Wittig, … is ingenious, sardonic, parodie. [She] explores the various roles women have played: grandmother, mother, daughter, sister, wife and second wife, businesswoman in man’s clothing, prostitute, factory worker, movie star, muse and tutelary spirit, warrior, artist, fake saint, martyr.”
—Catharine R. Stimpson
“Lover seduces the reader with its playful masquerading, its lyrical language, its entwined stories of women lovers who appear as debonair actors, precarious beam-walkers, languishing beauties—sexual outlaws all, pursuing, teasing, embracing, birthing each other. The introduction, by turns funny, sad, moving, and outrageous, is alone worth the price of the book. Lover is everything a seduction should be— smart, unpredictable, witty, provocative—and sexy.”
—Carolyn Allen
University of Washington
The Cutting Edge: Lesbian Life and Literature
Series Editor: Karla Jay
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The Search for a Woman-Centered Spirituality BY ANNETTE J. VAN DYKE
I Know My Own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister, 1791-1840 EDITED BY HELENA WHITBREAD
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Editorial Board
Judith Butler
Humanities Center
The Johns Hopkins University
Blanche Wiesen Cook
History and Women’s Studies
John Jay College and
City University of New York
Graduate Center
Diane Griffin Crowder
French and Women’s Studies
Cornell College
Joanne Glasgow
English and Women’s Studies
Bergen Community College
Marny Hall
Psychotherapist and Writer
Celia Kitzinger
Social Studies
Loughborough University, UK
Jane Marcus
English and Women’s Studies
City University of New York
Graduate Center
Biddy Martin
German and Women’s Studies
Cornell University
Cornell University
Elizabeth Meese
English
University of Alabama
Esther Newton
Anthropology
SUNY, Purchase
Terri de la Peña
Novelist/Short Story Writer
Ruthann Robson
Writer
Law School at Queens
City