In 1985 Jeanette Winterson's first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was published. It tells the story of a young girl adopted by Pentecostal parents. The girl is supposed to grow up and be a missionary. Instead she falls in love with a woman. Disaster.
Written when Jeanette was only twenty-five, her novel went on to win the Whitbread First Novel award, become an international bestseller and inspire an award-winning BBC television adaptation.
Oranges was semi-autobiographical. Mrs Winterson, a thwarted giantess, loomed over that novel and its author's life. When Jeanette finally left her home, at sixteen, because she was in love with a woman, Mrs Winterson asked her: why be happy when you could be normal?
This book is the story of a life's work to find happiness. It is a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a tyrant in place of a mother, who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the duster drawer, waiting for Armageddon; about growing up in an northern industrial town now changed beyond recognition, part of a community now vanished; about the Universe as a Cosmic Dustbin. It is the story of how the painful past Jeanette Winterson thought she had written over and repainted returned to haunt her later life, and sent her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her real mother. It is also a book about other people's stories, showing how fiction and poetry can form a string of guiding lights, a life-raft which supports us when we are sinking.
Funny, acute, fierce and celebratory, this is a tough-minded search for belonging, for love, an identity, a home, and a mother.



![Niland, Conor SPORT Conor Niland: The Racket [2024] paperback](http://chaptersbookstore.com/cdn/shop/files/niland-conor-conor-niland-the-racket-2024-paperback-58820653515091_{width}x.jpg?v=1760353359)
![Daly, Hannah IRISH BIOGRAPHY Hannah Daly: Knowing No Boundaries [2022] paperback](http://chaptersbookstore.com/cdn/shop/files/daly-hannah-hannah-daly-knowing-no-boundaries-2022-paperback-1171049945_{width}x.jpg?v=1748883685)
![Westover, Tara BIOGRAPHY Tara Westover: Educated: The international bestselling memoir [2018] paperback](http://chaptersbookstore.com/cdn/shop/files/westover-tara-tara-westover-educated-the-international-bestselling-memoir-2018-paperback-57939868025171_{width}x.jpg?v=1726362680)
![O'sullivan, Katriona IRISH BIOGRAPHY Katriona O'Sullivan: Poor: Grit Courage And The Life-c [2023] paperback](http://chaptersbookstore.com/cdn/shop/files/o-sullivan-katriona-katriona-o-sullivan-poor-grit-courage-and-the-life-c-2023-paperback-57396766343507_{width}x.jpg?v=1727097442)
![Anthony Bourdain PREORDER NONFICTION New Bourdain Anthony: Kitchen Confidential [2025] paperback](http://chaptersbookstore.com/cdn/shop/files/anthony-bourdain-bourdain-anthony-kitchen-confidential-2025-paperback-9781526692528-1161531001_{width}x.jpg?v=1746750693)