I keep picking up lesbian novels that end up being a coming-of-age about a girl from a white trash background (Cool for You, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, and now this). someone with more time and (critically) who is much smarter than me has probably written an interesting analysis of why this category of novel exists. I suspect that it has to do with the experience of poverty leading outsider girls to question their outsider status by interrogating societal power structures. but of course philosophers come from anywhere, poverty is not a blessing that grants insight, and it makes sense to me that if someone is going to see social structures for what they are that someone is going to be a woman. still, class consciousness is essential to these books, and especially to Rubyfruit Jungle:

I have a billion other things to say. Brown’s authorial voice is bluntly hilarious in a world where “blunt hilarity” is often used to describe simplistic and poorly-timed punchlines. already in 1973 she is disinterested in and even disgusted by false binaries, including butch/femme binaries that she saw as an attempt to legitimize lesbian relationships by recreating male/female dynamics. She thinks that categorization using labels for sexuality and gender (even if the categories appear radical) is still detrimental to the human experience. She is pro consensual incest, which is never an easy position to take. For her, sex with men is not unthinkable or even especially traumatic, it is just boring and lifeless when compared to sex with women. She has no interest in men generally, thinking them childish cowards who receive praise whenever they aren’t totally shitty. Molly’s family relationships are strained and seem like something to escape from, until the novel comes all the way back around and shows beautifully and painfully that family stays with us and is not easy to shake, is not even something we should try to shake, though many times we still have to leave for good. In short, lovely, funny, individual/structural, more radical than most leftist stuff I encounter today. I think Molly and Eileen and Jeanette would really like each other.