Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (New Windmills) - Hardcover

Winterson, Jeanette

3.73

79,555 ratings by Goodreads

9780435123802: Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (New Windmills)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0435123807 ISBN 13: 9780435123802

Publisher: Pearson Education Limited, 1991

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit Instead of growing up to become a missionary as her mother has planned for her, Jess Debden falls in love with another girl, rejects the strident evangelism of her family and walks out of her small Lancashire home town to go to Oxford. Full description

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

Jeanette, the protagonist of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and the author's namesake, has issues--"unnatural" ones: her adopted mam thinks she's the Chosen one from God; she's beginning to fancy girls; and an orange demon keeps popping into her psyche. Already Jeanette Winterson's semi-autobiographical first novel is not your typical coming-of-age tale.

Brought up in a working-class Pentecostal family, up North, Jeanette follows the path her Mam has set for her. This involves Bible quizzes, a stint as a tambourine-playing Sally Army officer and a future as a missionary in Africa, or some other "heathen state". When Jeanette starts going to school ("The Breeding Ground") and confides in her mother about her feelings for another girl ("Unnatural Passions"), she's swept up in a feverish frenzy for her tainted soul. Confused, angry and alone, Jeanette strikes out on her own path, that involves a funeral parlour and an ice-cream van. Mixed in with the so-called reality of Jeanette's existence growing up are unconventional fairy tales that transcend the everyday world, subverting the traditional preconceptions of the damsel in distress.

In Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Winterson knits a complicated picture of teenage angst through a series of layered narratives, incorporating and subverting fairytales and myths, to present a coherent whole, within which her stories can stand independently. Imaginative and mischievous, she is a born storyteller, teasing and taunting the reader to reconsider their worldview. --Nicola Perry

Review:

"She is a master of her material, a writer in whom great talent abides" (Vanity Fair)

"Many consider her to be the best living writer in this language... In her hands, words are fluid, radiant, humming" (Evening Standard)

"An novel that deserves revisiting...Winterson maintains a balance of tone, a trueness of voice... It remains one of the finest things Winterson has written" (Observer)

"Still extraordinary, still brilliant" (Metro)

"Even at a time when so many good and interesting novels are coming out, hers stand out as performances of real originality and extraordinary promise" (John Bayley)

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.