Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit was written by Jeanette Winterson when
she was just 24 “during the winter of 1983 and the spring of 1984.” It was her
first book and went through more than a few publishers' hands before newly
created Pandora’s Press took a chance with Winterson’s self-described “experimental
novel” about a gay teenage girl brought up in a fanatically religious family.
Pandora was rewarded for their risk when Oranges…
went on to win the Whitbread Award for best first novel after enormous
sales thanks to rampant word-of-mouth but very little publicity.
In the Vintage Books edition of Oranges… Winterson gives the reader a stark review of her own
novel. “Oranges is a threatening novel,” she tells us. Her purpose is to expose
the “psychoses” of the church and the “sham” of the family unit. She claims these
two institutions profess love as their foundation, but instead thwart love along
with happiness, freedom, and individuality. Specifically, the love that is
thwarted by family and church in this novel is the homosexual love between the
teenage protagonist, Jeanette, and a friend that she has successfully converted
to her Fundamentalist church. The reaction of Jeanette’s fanatically religious
mother is extreme to say the least and involves everything from hours of
interrogation by members of the church to days of incarceration and starvation.
Winterson’s novel is best described as a fictionalized autobiography.
She is herself gay and had a similar upbringing – she even gives the
protagonist her own name. The isolated childhood she endures in the midst of a
dysfunctional family (and that is to put it mildly) and an extreme
fundamentally evangelical church could be a very sad story – but isn’t. Winterson is very funny and her style, though
“experimental” as she says, and unlike anything I’ve ever read before, is
absolutely delightful and makes for an easy and quick read. You will be hooked
from the first few sentences…
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