Tim Hennessey, who wasn't able to be with us last week for our discussion of Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle, shared some thoughts I wanted to pass along:
"Many of the places in Fort Lauderdale Brown writes about are still there: the Egg N You Diner, Powerline Road, Holiday Park, Navy School. I also loved how she captured the allure of the big city to all gay people, whether they leave their small towns to head to NYC, Chicago, L.A., etc.
"I'm not sure if many of you have read Adriana Trigiani's many best-sellers about life in Appalachia (e.g., the Big Stone Gap series) and Italy (e.g., Lucia, Lucia and The Shoemaker's Wife). She grew up in a hollow in Virginia and attended St. Mary's College in Indiana when I was there. She was a rising star even then."
Thanks, Tim!
In addition, last November I posted an item about the New York Times marking the 50th anniversary of the novel's publication with a roundup of reactions to the novel from a host of musicians and writers. Unfortunately, I was so far ahead of my time (LOL) that only a handful of you read it back then, so I'm taking the liberty of reposting it here.
I especially like this photo of the author, both because it captures her personality so well and because its caption reminds us of her strong connection to Washington, D.C., during the 1970s. Brown was a founding member of The Furies Collective, a separatist lesbian feminist community in D.C. that purchased and lived in two houses. The experiment only lasted a year (1971-1972), but its example remained influential long afterward. Brown went on to earn a doctorate in political science from the Institute for Public Studies in D.C.
JEB (Joan E. Biren)
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