October 8th, 1997 to October 14th, 1997

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today: Rita Mae and Rubyfruit

by Jorjet Harper

Rubyfruit Jungle, the first openly lesbian-themed comic novel, was originally published by Daughters, a small lesbian press, in 1973. It was so successful that it was reprinted in 1977 by the mainstream publishing house Bantam, and went on to make publishing history: the first lesbian-themed novel to become a phenomenal bestseller.

Its author, Rita Mae Brown, became "the most famous openly gay person in America," at a time when to be openly gay in public life was still almost unheard of. And wonder of wonders, she was not at all apologetic about it, and neither was the whimsical heroine of her book.

Today Rubyfruit Jungle is a classic, and for anyone interested in the evolution of the gay and lesbian movement, it remains one of a handful of "must read" novels.

Bantam-the same house that published Rubyfruit exactly two decades ago-has just published a volume of Brown's memoirs, called Rita Will: Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser. Brown will be in Chicago Oct. 16, at Women & Children First, to sign copies of the new book.

Rita Will invites readers to take a close look at the writer behind the phenomenon, and enables one to see just how much the story of Rubyfruit Jungle parallels Brown's real life, and on the other hand, how different from her actual life it is in many ways. And it tells-with Brown's signature combination of no-bull humor and Southern charm-the story of the social milieu from which Brown emerged, details of her part in the women's movement, what happened to her after she became an overnight literary success, and her reflections on her several celebrity romances.

Why, at this point in her career, after a string of novels and a successful series of mystery books, did Brown decide to write a memoir?

"My publisher said, 'You better write it all down before you get too old and forget it all,' " Brown says, laughing. "I was insulted. How dare you say that to me?" But she took the advice and spent about a year writing Rita Will.
"I have a storage unit full of books and research papers, but that's all about novels," she says. "I've not been very good about researching my own life." Brown is a woman who laughs a lot, and gives the impression of being a basically happy, upbeat person. "If I were to write someone else's biography I'd do it differently. I'd probably do it like a giant term paper, you know, spend a lot of time in the library and all that. But I think that when it's your own life it's much easier to write it as reminiscences."

Of course, a lot of things have changed in the last 20 years. In Rubyfruit Jungle, the heroine Molly Bolt tries to explain heterosexism, and says angrily to another woman, "You don't see ads of women kissing to get you to buy Salem cigarettes, do you?" The woman to whom she is talking laughs and says "That's funny, that's truly funny. Why, the entire world must look different to you." But today, there are ads of two women kissing to sell products-they are not yet in the subway, but they are in slick lesbian magazines. What does that says about how lesbian culture has changed and what's going to happen in the future?

"Well, I don't think it necessarily confines itself to lesbian culture," says Brown. "For me, one of the big turning points just happened a couple of days ago-it was in the papers yesterday: the Catholic bishops saying, 'Parents, love your gay children.' Those are the giant breakthroughs that then become reflected in these superficial ways, such as using two women to sell a product. It was inconceivable in the early 1970s, at the time Rubyfruit Jungle came out. So there's been a lot of progress. It's never as fast as you would like it, but it's certainly more fast than your enemies like."

Brown believes that even though we have been witnessing a resurgence of the Right, people are tolerant. "I think they were always tolerant. Americans by and large are very generous people. But it was done in a different way: we lived in small communities; people knew one another. So the way you described somebody who was gay was just they were 'that way.' Nobody ever said anything hateful. I never heard one anti-gay comment in my life, really, until I got into college. My parents never said anything. But as we moved into the big cities where nobody knows anybody, I think that's when the intolerances flare up in these structured ways, much more than in the small towns around the country where people need one another."

Brown believes that historically, "people have had more sense about these issues in some ways than we've had in the last 20 or 30 years. What is different is that most times we had to marry. You had to marry and produce children, that was your job. Everybody had to produce children because there weren't enough people. Now we've got so many we don't need that. It's really very different. And our relationship to the Earth's resources are very different than somebody a hundred years ago."

With all the breakthroughs that continue to be made today, Brown reflects, "the question now is: what do you do with it? If there is this somewhat limited acceptance, what do you do? You can't keep complaining about being gay anymore. So now you have to put up or shut up. You have to be involved in other issues, too. You really need to come back to the community and contribute to that whole community. If you want the community to accept you as a gay person then you have to produce for the community." Brown cautions that she is not trying to discount working for specifically gay causes. "Nobody's saying these things are mutually exclusive. You're a citizen of the United States, you can't sit there and blab about rights if you aren't willing to work in a democracy. It isn't something somebody gives you, it's something you earn.

"I really think that we've evolved, and that every one of us has to reexamine what our responsibilities are, as well as what we want to do with our individual lives. The gift of individuality really is that we are all different, and being gay isn't superglue. You can have more in common with somebody who is straight who likes to, say, kayak, than someone who is gay and doesn't. What I'm saying is that individuality does matter. Gay people often haven't been allowed to be anything else. For some people moving beyond gay issues is painful. They've been in a gay cocoon. But even though it's painful, it's still a cocoon, and having to leave that now is difficult.

"So now what we're seeing is a generational struggle among gays. And I wouldn't try to push it under the rug. It's an incredible, exciting time."

A long-time activist, Brown believes that today's gays and lesbians in the U.S. do have a responsibility to other gays and lesbians the world. "We're a rich country, and it's our time, and we should use it wisely. We are in fact the most powerful nation on Earth. We have the responsibility, it's on our shoulders. But politics is a bruising business, and I have to live with the mistakes of other generations, and generations ahead are going to have to live with ours."

After all this time, is Brown tired of talking about Rubyfruit Jungle? "Well I'm glad I wrote it. I'm glad I did everything I did. I've had a great time," she says, laughing again. Always busy, after her tour for Rita Will, Brown will begin her next book, and will also soon complete another "collaboration" with Sneakie Pie Brown, the cat with whom she "co-writes" the Mrs. Murphy mystery series. "I'd rather wear out than rust out," she says, smiling.

Rita Mae Brown will sign copies of her new book Thursday, Oct. 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Women and Children First Bookstore, 5233 N. Clark St., (773) 769-9299.

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