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Rita Mae Brown (Women’s Issues (Ready Reference series))

Author Profile

Rita Mae Brown rejects the decorum that marks much of mainstream literature, and publishers were wary of the brash lesbianism of her semiautobiographical novel Rubyfruit Jungle (1973). Active in the National Organization for Women (NOW), Brown has taken a highly personal view of feminist issues in her poetry, The Hand That Cradles the Rock (1971), Songs to a Handsome Woman (1973), and Poems (1987). A Plain Brown Rapper (1976) recounts a decade of her work in the women’s movement. Her novels Southern Discomfort (1982) and Sudden Death (1983) are iconoclastic portrayals of feminist and racial issues.

Bibliography

Boyle, Sharon D. “Rita Mae Brown.” In Contemporary Lesbian Writers of the United States: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, edited by Sandra Pollack and Denise D. Knight. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993. Profiles Brown’s life and work. Includes an extended discussion of Rubyfruit Jungle and a useful bibliography.

Chew, Martha. “Rita Mae Brown: Feminist Theorist and Southern Novelist.” Southern Quarterly 22 (1983): 61-80. Chew shows how Brown’s early novels are informed by a specifically “lesbian feminist political vision,” whereas her later works are “increasingly directed toward a mainstream audience.”

Decure, Nicole. “The Feat of Telling It Like It Is: Concealment Tactics in Rita Mae Brown’s Fiction.” Women’s Studies International Forum 17, no. 4 (July/August, 1994): 425-433. Treats Brown’s condemnation of women’s tendencies to conceal socially unpopular practices, such as lesbianism.

Harris, Bertha. Review of Rubyfruit Jungle, by Rita Mae Brown. The Village Voice, April 4, 1974. A particularly good source.

Moore, Claudia. School Library Journal 41 (March, 1995). Assesses Dolley’s historical relevance for young adult readers.

Ward, Carol Marie. Rita Mae Brown. New York: Twayne, 1993. Provides an overview of Brown’s life, writings, and philosophy, as well as an annotated bibliography of sources. A good introduction to Brown’s life and works.

Zimmerman, Bonnie. The Safe Sea of Women: Lesbian Fiction, 1969-1989. Boston: Beacon Press, 1990. This insightful book-length study of contemporary lesbian prose explores the interaction between fiction and community, specifically how lesbian novels and short stories have both reflected and shaped the lesbian community. Zimmerman describes Rubyfruit Jungle as the quintessential “coming-out” novel.

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