Month: April 2010

Guest Lesbrarian: Heather

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We’ve got another Guest Lesbrarian today: Heather. She’s reviewing Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, a lesbian classic.

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson

I only recently discovered GoodReads (I know, it’s like I’ve been living under a rock!), and I’ve been reading lots of their lists.  It occurred to me that perhaps as a good lesbian I should try reading more gay fiction.  I’ve read some, of course (including Stone Butch Blues, which I shared a little bit about in my last Top Ten Post)  But really,  if I don’t want to have to give back my toaster oven I should have a passing knowledge of important works in the GLBT genre.

With that in mind I ordered Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, by Jeanette Winterson.  It is really a roman a clef of the author’s early years in Northern England.  The main character, Jeanette, is the adopted daughter of a fundamentalist Christian couple. Her mother adopted her in order to raise her up to give to the Lord as a missionary for His cause.  From early days, however, Jeanette shows that she is her own person and will not be forced into someone else’s ideas about what she should be.  As she grows up, she becomes  more and more rebellious-and she falls in love.  With a GIRL!  Let’s just say that her relationship with her mother really starts to go downhill after the failed exorcism…that’s right, they tried to exorcise the gay right out of her!

Winterson has a dry, witty sense of humor that makes what could be a tragic story of betrayal and loss into something altogether more powerful.  At not one point in the story did Jeanette doubt that God meant her to be the way she was.  The people in her church loved her, thought she had a calling to preaching and missionary work-until they found out she was gay.  Suddenly, the leadership decided that maybe women were getting above their true place in the church, and should no longer be allowed to preach.  Apparently Jeanette’s love for Katy convinced them that she was trying to be a man.  But not once did Jeanette waver in her belief that what she was and how she felt was as natural as loving the Lord, which she did with fervor.  Usually reading about religious fundamentalists makes me a little twitchy, but Winterson handled them in such a way that while I completely disagree with almost everything about the way they view life and God, I couldn’t help but accept and respect their humanity.  Jeanette says, at one point in the book, that she loved the Lord-it was some of his followers that she had problems with. She eventually finds her way out of the insular world she was raised in, first through her prodigious imagination, and finally by physically moving to the big city.  But she can’t completely leave behind her mother and her religious fervor.  The book concludes with Jeanette going home for Christmas to find her mother perched by the ham radio, networking with other born-again Christians for prayer, support, and most of all the conversion of the rest of us Godless souls.  Despite the new life Jeanette has found for herself, it is almost like she is comforted somehow by the idea that while she is off in the world, her mother stays behind, fighting other people’s demons one prayer request at a time.  I guess this is probably true of all of us.  No matter how much we may try to separate ourselves from where we come from, the fact remains that we carry those people and experiences around with us into every new town, new job, or new relationship that we have.

Thanks, Heather! I adore Jeanette Winterson, it’s good to see her getting some reviews. If you want to check out Heather’s book blog, it’s Book Addict’s Book Reviews.

Have you read Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit or another Jeanette Winterson book? What did you think of it?

I’m always looking for more guest posts! If you’ve read a lesbrary (woman-loving-woman book) lately, go to the Guest Lesbrarians link and submit a review!

Lesbrary Lust for the Surprisingly Specific: Cookbooks

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I remember when I first went looking for lesbian/queer women books. It seemed like there were so few. That’s what inspired the subtitle of this blog; I figured eventually I could read all of them, at least all of the ones worth reading. But now, of course, I realize that there are far more lesbrary novels than I could ever read. In fact, there are lesbian/queer books catered to what seems like every tiny subsection of our population. I’ve been fascinated with these incredibly specific books lately. I’m not talking about lesbians from various countries or ethnicities, that, of course, makes sense. Or even queer genre fiction, like queer sci fi. I should hope we have those. No, I’m talking the ones that seem too specific to exist. Like these:

Yes, that’s right, The Lesbian Erotic Cookbook. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a lesbian cookbook or an erotic cookbook, but here’s both of them at once! Yep, I definitely thought this was a weird find, but there’s a book for everything, right?

Oh, no. Not just a book, singular. There are multiple queer cookbooks. Yes, there is also the butch cook book. Because a lesbian cookbook wasn’t specific enough. To be fair, this also includes personal stories and things, but it still is a butch cook book, including “the ‘Butch Basics,’ which include macaroni and cheese from a box and a mayo sandwich (easy enough with only three ingredients: bread, pickles, and mayo)”. Well, as a vegan, this one probably wouldn’t treat me so well.

It’s not just lesbians who feel the need to have their recipes reflect their sexual preference. Here’s a queer cookbook that promises it’s a “Fully-Guided Tour to the Secrets of Success in the Homosexual Kitchen!” How does one acquire a homosexual kitchen, or turn the kitchen they have gay? This is apparently also a British cookbook, so if you’ve ever been puttering around thinking “I’m in the mood for something… gay and English”, here’s the book for you.

I think this will be an ongoing feature of the Lesbrary. Have you stumbled upon any surprisingly specific lesbian/queer books?