Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit (1985) was Jeanette Winterson's first novel. I have just finished reading it for the second time (I read it the first time as a student). It is such an original powerful book. The story (at least in part autobiographical) was a very daring one to tell at the time of its publication: the novel is about an adopted girl being raised in Lancashire by a self-righteous born-again Christian mother. Its structure is not any less daring as it is original: without being told in strictly chronological order, the story is not hard to follow. The reader (or at least I did) will get a sense of the "madness" Jeanette, for that is the narrator/protagonist's name, was brought up in and also how she will finally be able to find her way out of it. Precisely, in the last chapters there is a parallel fary tale-like narrative that works to help the reader understand the protagonist's progress.
Other novels I have read by the same author: The Passion and Sexy the Cherry.
