"Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" by Jeanette Winterson

“I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and knows that love is as strong as death, and be on my side forever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me.”

Themes: Mother/Daughter Relationship; Childhood; Memory; Innocence; Religion

Discussion Questions:

1. Why is this the title? What do you think the motif/metaphor of oranges throughout the novel represents? Were you surprised that it was Jeanette's mother who said the line in the end?

2. What function did the story interludes serve? How did they change your reading?

3. Why does Jeanette return for Christmas?

4. How did you connect the story/history/fact idea she brings up with the nature of this novel (ie, auto fiction)?

5. Why is the last chapter called Ruth?

6. What do you make of Jeanette's "orange demon"?

7. How does Jeanette's relationship to her mother in this book compare to the main mother-daughter relationship in "Sunburn"?

8. Where is the dad in all of this? How is his absence its own sort of character?