I have a new favorite lesbian writer. ( )

Both the book and Winterson's "performance" of reading it are brilliant. I felt as if she were sitting next to me in the car telling me her story. It's the story of her growing up and then more recent years...skipping some time in the middle of her life. If you've read Oranges you'll enjoyed this very much, but even if you've never read a word of Winterson's writing this is an excellent memoir about mothers--adopted, biological, chosen--and daughters, about learning how to live in the world, about claiming your life. But it's not just about mothers and daughters so don't be put off. And its certainly not about mothers and daughters in any sappy kind of way, but in the raw grittiness of how things are or can be. It's about Winterson's life, her desire to write, her reading, English literature, industrial northern England, going mad, finding love, etc. The only draw-back to listening to this rather than reading it is that I couldn't underline the poignant moments, the bits of philosophy or beautiful sentences that I'd like to go back to and appreciate. I plan on reading the book in the future so I can do just that. ( )

my intro to her fabulous writing ( )

This is strong stuff. Bourbon, not Chardonnay.

In this memoir Winterson takes a tough look at her life. Not just the decidedly odd circumstances of her childhood, but also about herself as an adult. She is candid about her emotional challenges in a way that manages to be both brutally honest and also hopeful for future growth.

Along the way she writes beautifully and at length about the meaning of home:

“I've always tried to make a home for myself, but I have not felt at home in myself. I've worked hard at being the hero of my own life. But every time I checked the register of displaced persons, I was still on it. I didn't know how to belong. Longing? Yes. Belonging? No.”

and about social and cultural issues:

“I didn't want to be in the teeming mass of the working class.... I didn't want to live and die in the same place with only a week at the seaside in between. I dreamed of escape -- but what is terrible about industrialisation is that it makes escape necessary. In a system that generates masses, individualism is the only way out. But then what happens to community -- to society?”

And most importantly, about reading and writing:

“The more I read, the more I felt connected across time to other lives and deeper sympathies. I felt less isolated. I wasn’t floating on my little raft in the present; there were bridges that led over to solid ground. Yes, the past is another country, but one that we can visit, and once there we can bring back the things we need. ...

There’s a lot of talk about the tame world versus the wild world. It is not only a wild nature that we need as human beings; it is the untamed open space of our imaginations.

Reading is where the wild things are.”

For anyone who has struggled from time to time to fit into the mold of normalcy, this book has much to offer. It's not an easy read, but the painful moments are offset by her beautifully worded insights.

Coming to Winterson's writing by way of non-fiction I find myself very much looking forward to reading her extensive writings in fiction.

( )

How can a memoir be so intensely heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time? And also poignantly funny and full of extraordinary language? Too much in this book resonates with me – I could read it over and over again. A little more breathtakingly honest than Oranges are not the only Fruit, if you can imagine that, it’s more to the story of adoption, abandonment and embracing of self as only she can tell it. ( )