Rubyfruit Jungle

A Novel

By: Rita Mae Brown

Narrated by: Anna Paquin

Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

Academy Award winner Anna Paquin narrates Rita Mae Brown’s pathbreaking novel Rubyfruit Jungle, available for the first time ever in audio.

A landmark coming-of-age novel that launched the career of one of this country’s most distinctive voices, Rubyfruit Jungle remains a transformative work since its original publication almost fifty years ago.

In bawdy, moving prose, Rita Mae Brown tells the story of Molly Bolt, the adoptive daughter of a dirt-poor Southern couple who boldly forges her own path in America. With her startling beauty and crackling wit, Molly finds that women are drawn to her wherever she goes - and she refuses to apologize for loving them back.

This literary milestone continues to resonate with its message about being true to yourself and, against the odds, living happily ever after.

©1973 by Rita Mae Brown. Introduction © 2015 by American Artist, Inc. (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

A Warm and Funny Coming of Age Tale

I can’t believe that it took me so long to finally read this charming classic of LGBT fiction. With vivid and engaging characters and evocative descriptions of 1960s life in both the north and the south, I was completely delighted with this novel. Anna Paquin does a great job with the narration as well.

An early classic by my favorite author.

Read it in paperback ages ago, when I was just coming out myself. Been a fan ever since. Anna Paquin does a great job.

The Ruby Story

Love the story. The narrator was very believable and quite good. A must read.

Great book for new lesbians

I read this when I was 20 and in my first lesbian relationship. I always remember it as one of my favorite most influential books. Couldn’t remember why.

38 years later, I’ve re-listened here. The story is sweet, the reading is excellent, and though it’s a lovely coming of age book, now that I’ve been out all these years, it’s hard to remember why this impacted me so profoundly.

But I wish that coming out enjoyment for all you young lesbians :)

Excellent

Life changing book when I was 18. Hearing it aloud was fun, well done and nostalgic.

Wonderful historic work

A really moving account of life for a woman, who is both financially, poor, and a lesbian. While we still have so long to go, the book does make you realize how far much of our society has come. Now we just have to stop the back sliding.

memories

loved it as a teenager and still love it now. there is some power in the words. I recommend it to any straight or lbgt person. get some insight.

May or may not be your cup of tea 🫖

Just love to hear books on audible. That wasn’t necessarily a theme was it was of my interest. I read this book in my 20s, I am now in my 60s, and I did enjoy it although most of it was slightly offensive. But a good read nonetheless.

A classic in the genre of lesbian literature

Back when I was an undergraduate, I am now retired. I was directed towards reading this book during a period when I was questioning my sexuality. There’s a bunch of books that I read at that time, and I seem to have mush them all together in my brain, because I genuinely believed that the story was different than this. At the time I read this, I read oranges are not the only fruit, and some thing else which my brain all smashed together.

Re-reading this book about 30 years later I’m less impressed with it than I was the first time around. Oranges are not the only fruit held up for me but not this. This might be due to the really lousy casting of Anna Paquin as the reader. For those who don’t know Anna Paquin was raised in New Zealand. She is not a southern girl. And I find her accent, irritating, because that’s definitely not how poor white Floridians — those who live in the small rural towns, not Miami or Orlando — speak. On top of that she has this sort of breathy thing going on that I found it really distracting.

great narration to classic novel - thanks

she has always been a favorite writer, nice to get some classic books into audio. 😍