‘Hallucinatory and strangely funny’: SYP LDN reads Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Posted on October 9, 2020 in London

The evenings are getting darker and we’re whacking out the winter coats. Things are getting chilly outside, aren’t they? Thankfully, that means pretty autumnal walks through my local park and an excuse to drink ALL the hot chocolate. Ever. I mentioned in my last book club piece that some of us were taking tentative steps back towards the Tube; sorry, I jinxed it. So let’s forget the world, grab a mug of something hot and curl up under a blanket with a book.

The team at SYP LDN are buzzing away in the background organising panels and pestering the best of the publishing industry to bestow their wisdom on you at our Turning The Page Virtual Conference in November. Haven’t heard of it? It’s all good; I’ve got you… Click here for our lovely shiny Conference website! On the 5^th October 2020, we gathered around our Zoom screens with a steaming mug of tea/ cheeky glass of wine (delete as appropriate) to discuss Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.

Born in Manchester in 1959, the real-life writer Jeanette Winterson was adopted as a baby and raised by a Pentecostal couple. Pentecostals are a religious evangelical community who believe in the Second Coming of Christ and the End of the World. Raised to be a missionary in a home where the only books allowed were religious texts, it certainly caused some tension when Winterson fell in love with another young woman as a teenager. Cast out, she left home for London. Winterson has led an amazing life and now lives in the Cotswolds where she works as Professor of New Writing at the University of Manchester.

“Hallucinatory and a little bit strange!”

“Surprisingly funny!”

We were all fascinated by Winterson’s novella! Published in 1985, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a mix of hallucinatory fiction with a little bit of autobiography thrown in.

Winterson’s protagonist, also named Jeanette, exists in a kind of fairy-tale, fantasy world, envisioning knights and demons which both seem to reflect her real life and allow her to escape from it. While the fantasies can be discombobulating, who doesn’t love a big orange demon to talk to which (arguably) represents your struggles with sexuality? Giving me serious Shame Wizard in Big Mouth energy. Or, for a more high-brow comparison, think Jane Eyre in the Red Room. The story tracks Jeanette through her childhood and adolescence, her first loves (both women) and being cast out from the only community she’s ever known.

Despite the obviously sensitive content, SYP London’s October Book Club discusses how Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is in places surprisingly funny. Not only is Jeanette’s mother ridiculous and comes out with some golden one-liners while obsessing over a preacher all the way over the sea in the United States, but the mother also has a section of a photo album dedicated to her exes. One of which – a woman! (The hypocrisy!) Can’t say I’ve got my exes photos all chilling together in a photo album; what about you? Jeanette always works a real variety of jobs after she’s been cast out from the church, including one job at the mortuary and another running an ice cream truck. Now, that’s a variety of skills of which Rishi Sunak would be proud.

We agreed, either despite or giving thanks to the novella’s more peculiar moments, we would read it again but agreed it works well as a novella. A whole novel of big orange shame demons might be a bit much.

So, if you’ve not picked up Winterson’s novella just yet, prepare yourself for a fantastical and hallucinatory read mixed in with a whole lot of delicate emotions whether that be first loves or being cast out from your community.

And let us know what you think under #SYPLDNBookClub on Twitter and why not join us at our November book club where we’ll be discussing Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.

As ever, keep an eye on our socials for new events and don’t miss our October newsletter dropping into your inboxes soon! And grab your ticket for Conference – nah, seriously, do it. Little link again for you.

Take care!