Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Written and Narrated By: Jeanette Winterson

Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins

Kinda cringed, kinda laughed, but I was always moved by this touching fictional / autobiographical account of a messy but delightful life

Aaaaaaaages ago, a friend tried turning me onto Jeanette Winterson by giving (Actually she lent it to me, but I never managed to give it back… My bad…) me a copy of Sexing the Cherry. The friend had read it in a Women’s Studies course at UTAustin and had loved it. Me?

I never got into it and wound up taking it to Half Price Books to see if I could get any money for it. I know, bad friend (My friend was long gone by then, so I couldn’t give it back, I swear!) of me.

So I wasn’t expecting much when I dived into Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, but I wanted something for Pride Month from a much-respected author.

Oh how enchanted I was by this semi-autobiographical novel. Welllll, maybe enchanted is the wrong word as it’s plenty gritty and a tad heartrending too.

The “story” is of young Jeanette, adopted into a home where Dad is a rather passive nonentity, and Mom is a Bible thumping oh so devout Christian who adopted the girl so that she might mold the kid to become the perfect missionary. Little Jeanette is homeschooled, learning to read from Biblical texts, and she spends her free time out spreading the word of God and beating on a tambourine. When Mom is threatened with jail if she should fail to get Jeanette into a real school, Jeanette goes. There she doesn’t quiiiiite understand why she’s such an outcast: Surely it’s normal to be spouting the Word every chance you get; surely it’s normal to learn needlework by embroidering lugubrious Biblical sayings onto little pillows.

And surely it’s normal to live in a working class neighborhood, and to deal with the people next door having very sinful and very loud sex by Mom banging church hymns on the piano and belting out the words—much to the consternation of the Fornicators. Hilarious, right?

Yesssss, indeed it is. Cuz Winterson writes in a way that shows she now sees just how odd it all really was. And she also writes as tho’ she’s almost missing that world.

Still and all, normal world it might be for Jeanette, she ultimately awakens to the fact that girls are her deal. And that’s soooo not something the church condones. An early romp with a girl Jeanette knows leads to utter chaos, and even mental torture. She’s a sinner, no doubt about it and there is literal Hell to pay.

But the wonderful thing about the book is that despite it all, Jeanette knows who she is, enough to leave home (She’s driven from it, really) at a very young age.

This is her story, and it’s interspersed with fairy tales, and tales of seeking the Holy Grail. And oranges are ALWAYS coming up in the narrative (Yesssss, it’s a totally apt title for the book). Deftly written, with incredible insight, compassion, and earned wisdom, it’s a treat of a journey, a nice way to walk in such unfamiliar shoes.

I don’t always agree with an author narrating their own work, but (Yes, yes, yes—she inSISts she’s a writer of fiction!) it’s so autobiographical (Judging from Wikipedia, and judging from followers of all her work) that it’s an absolute MUST that Winterson narrate this herself. She makes it all humorous, even as we’re cringing, even as we’re outraged, even as we’re feeling the sorrow Jeanette feels when a much-loved friend dies.

If you’re looking for erotica, it’s not here—one reviewer wrote, and that makes me wonder if Winterson is known for it? Which would be too bad, as we all know how my toes curl when things heat up in audiobooks.

Cuz, really? NOW I’m looking at the audiobook for Sexing the Cherry, considering what awesomely written wonders that book holds…

…totally distressed that once I had a chance to read it, but no—I let it go…