Rita Mae Brown

Classic modern American novel orig. pub. 1973. Celebrates lesbian sexuality.

Rubyfruit Jungle

alba

made me laugh, was interesting to see molly rise as a superhero but didn't get her fairytale ending

erin miller

"Critically acclaimed, Rubyfruit Junglelaunched Rita Mae Brown s career as one of this country s most distinctive writers and continues to be a powerful seminal work more than 40 years after its original publication. Bawdy and moving, the ultimate word-of-mouth bestseller, Rubyfruit Jungleis about growing up a lesbian in America - and living happily ever after."

Kevin Bertolero

God damn god damn god damn what a wonderful book.

Nikki Sojkowski

This was a pretty trashy queer novel and I loved it. I was so into it that it didn't even feel like a school assignment!

Sophie Shrimpton

I'm not sure what to think of this book. Part of me wants to dismiss it, say it's a lesbian feminist classic, I didn't learn anything blah blah. Part of me understands that this came first - that it only seems tropey and worn thin because everything I read in my angsty closeted teens was based on it. It was the original. It created something. Another part of me was grateful for the revival of my queer consciousness. I have been drifting away from thinking about queerness. My sexuality feels resolved, integrated. I don't see the need to engage with queer media - wow gender is a farce and you can have sex with who you want. Big deal. Queerness is one simple thing in a world of discovery. But, this book reminded me how fricking queer I am. It reminded me of myself. The relationships she had were gripping. I remembered the nervousness, the excitement of teen crushes and exploration. I'm thankful this was published - that it started something that I can benefit from today. That I can think of my queerness as a small thing I have integrated, rather than something that defines the experience of my life, as it does for Molly.

I also felt familiarity with other aspects of the story. Molly's simultaneous hatred of the small-mindedness of her hometown and wish she could return to its actual substance. Feeling like she could not get both - if you wanted to escape bigotry you had to play the game, be in the show. The scene where she visits her mother had me in tears. The image of a deteriorating mother, stuck in her old ways, alone in her house in her small town. The isolation, and not being able to understand the roots of the isolation. How it is created by her own beliefs and how she traps herself. 

I'm not sure what was up with Polina and Paul - whether the author thought their sexual fantasies were whack, or if the author is transphobic, given the sexual fantasies involved them being the "opposite" gender. 

Some quotes:
"No one remembers her beginnings. Mothers and aunts tell us about infancy and early childhood, hoping we won't forget the past when they had total control over our lives and secretly praying that because of it, we'll include them in our future."

"Molly, you're headin' for a hard life. You say you're gonna be a doctor or something great. Then you say you ain't getting married. You have to do some of the things everybody does or people don't like you."

(Leroy about Molly) "I dunno. I like you the way you are, but then I get confused. If you're doing what you please, out there riding around on motorcycles, then what am I supposed to do? I mean how do I know how to act if you act the same way?"

"... our conversations ran out of gas more frequently and we fell back on bikes, cars and movies."

"That's all I think I ever wanted, to go my own way and maybe find some love here and there. Love, but not the now and forever kind with chains around your vagina and a short circuit in your brain. I'd rather be alone."

"For all our fights, there was no getting around the fact that Carrie wasn't fooled by show and she regarded most of the world around her as a show for the rich at the expense of the poor."

On sex: "No, you take it too seriously, that's all." "Well, it is serious." "No, it isn't. It's a big dumb game and it doesn't mean anything at all unless you get pregnant, of course. Then it means you're screwed."

"I longer to return to the potato patch and raise hell with kids who didn't know the difference between Weejuns and Old Maine trotters. But those kids grew up and wore tons of eye-makeup, iridescent pink fingernail polish and scratched each other's eye out over the boy with the metalflake, candy apple red '55 Chevy with four on the floor. There was no place to go back to. No place to go to."

"Damn, I go walking down the street and the men look at me like a walking sperm receptacle. I walk into a party and this buzzard sees flesh. She's no different from a construction worker, she's just got class and bread, that's all."

On incest: "I have never been able to figure out why parents and children put each other in these desexed categories. It's antihuman, I think." (I want to read more about incest). 

Carrie's reaction to being cheated on: "Thirty-one years ago and her life froze in that year. She enamelled the sharp edge of misery into a pearl of passion."

"I wished I could be that frog back at Ep's old pond. I wished I could get up in the morning and look at the day the way I used to when I was a child."

Jacque

Allie Zurcher

Ditipriya Acharya

Kendall McClain

Eden

Laura Mauler

Ashley McFarland

CJ Clark

Jacqueline Jordan 

Ana Hein

Benjamin Oertel

Emily Murphy

Ellie Younger

Marissa Killian

Parker Belsches

“The rare work of fiction that has changed real life . . . If you don’t yet know Molly Bolt—or Rita Mae Brown, who created her—I urge you to read and thank them both.”—Gloria Steinem Winner of the Lambda Literary Pioneer Award | Winner of the Lee Lynch Classic Book Award A landmark coming-of-age novel that launched the career of one of this country’s most distinctive voices, Rubyfruit Jungle remains a transformative work more than forty years after its original publication. In bawdy, moving prose, Rita Mae Brown tells the story of Molly Bolt, the adoptive daughter of a dirt-poor Southern couple who boldly forges her own path in America. With her startling beauty and crackling wit, Molly finds that women are drawn to her wherever she goes—and she refuses to apologize for loving them back. This literary milestone continues to resonate with its message about being true to yourself and, against the odds, living happily ever after. Praise for Rubyfruit Jungle “Groundbreaking.”—The New York Times “Powerful . . . a truly incredible book . . . I found myself laughing hysterically, then sobbing uncontrollably just moments later.”—The Boston Globe “You can’t fully know—or enjoy—how much the world has changed without reading this truly wonderful book.”—Andrew Tobias, author of The Best Little Boy in the World “A crass and hilarious slice of growing up ‘different,’ as fun to read today as it was in 1973.”—The Rumpus “Molly Bolt is a genuine descendant—genuine female descendant—of Huckleberry Finn. And Rita Mae Brown is, like Mark Twain, a serious writer who gets her messages across through laughter.”—Donna E. Shalala “A trailblazing literary coup at publication . . . It was the right book at the right time.”—Lee Lynch, author of Beggar of Love

Rubyfruit Jungle

Reviews