Norma Trist – Love, Nonconformity and La Grange
Front cover of the 1895 edition of Norma Trist (via Out-History)
The milestones of LGBT+ literature are not the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of La Grange, Monument Hill, and the Kreische House, but that is just where the first English-language nov el to depict lesbian love is set. Norma Trist or Pure Carbon: A Story of the Inversion of the Sexes gives the modern reader not only a unique perspective on both assumptions and mores of the time but a literary description of the Kreische House, Monument Hill, and environs. A clear product of its time, littered with racial stereotypes, cliches, and literary tropes, it also provides a surprisingly affirmative depiction of same-sex love between women. Norma Trist is at turns intimate, eccentric, and patronizing, allowing its lesbian protagonist to speak her truth while denying her right to live it.
