In her book Are Girls Necessary? Lesbian Writing and Modem Histories,
Julie Abraham also examines theories of lesbian fiction. Out of the possible
relations between lesbianism and literature, Abraham believes two types of works
in which we can identify something lesbian have been produced: firstly, the
lesbian novel, which relies on lesbian content (i.e. representations of lesbian
sexuality and identity) and can be written by lesbians, as well as nonlesbians; and
secondly, lesbian writing, which is defined as the writing of a lesbian author (xii).
Despite the fact that Abraham insists on the existence of a "lesbian novel," she
acknowledges that writers of the lesbian novel are faced with a narrative
disenfranchisement which limits their writing, in that she believes lesbian novels
are actually merely homosexualized formula fictions of the conventional romance
plot (xix), which functions as "a trope for the sex-gender system as a whole"
(DuPlessis 5). The hegemony of the heterosexual regime, according to Abraham,
is perpetuated in literature in conventional narratives for which "there is no
corresponding 'lesbian plot'" (3). She claims that if there is lesbianism in a
conventional narrative, it is more often than not the "problem" that must be
resolved, reinforcing the idea that heterosexuality is the ground of all narrative.
However, Abraham does provide alternatives to the heterosexual romance formula
for lesbian novels. Through modes of resistance, such as turning "to history as an
alternative source of narrative convention," portraying romantic triangles among