oranges are not the only fruit by jeanette winterson

The reaction of the novelist's adoptive mother, 'Mrs Winterson', was still alive in her memory. K.W hen Jeanette Winterson discussed Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit at the Guardian book club, we could not get away from the responses of one particular reader.

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Nearly three decades after it was first published, ‘Oranges’ still stands out today for its originality and bravery. ‘Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit’ is an engagingly written novel and is often quirky and humorous in spite of the grim setting and events.

The fact that Winterson has drawn so heavily on her own life means that the characters in this novel are really brought to life and the story feels like it was written effortlessly. I was surprised by how much Winterson had drawn from her own life experiences as I was expecting the events and characters of the novel to be more disguised than they actually are in the book. ‘Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit’ is still thought-provoking and honest but the tone seems a lot angrier given that Winterson wrote it not long after her adolescence had ended and the memories were probably still very fresh. The novel is sensitively written but I found ‘Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?’ to be the more poignant of the two books probably because the distance of time after writing ‘Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit’ made her own memoirs more personal and reflective. Having read Winterson’s memoirs ‘Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?’ last month, ‘Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit’ seems perhaps less shocking to me than if I had read these books the other way round even though the events are virtually the same. It is a coming-of-age story like no other. It is a semi-autobiographical novel: the main character is called Jeanette and her experiences of growing up in a Pentecostal household in Lancashire and exploring her sexuality are heavily drawn from the author’s own life.

‘Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit’ is Jeanette Winterson’s controversial debut novel first published in 1985.

Oranges are not the only fruit by jeanette winterson