Queer As Art issue 2 April-May-June 2017 | Page 15

lesbian woman but in the acceptance of
all it implies.
Jeanette is never disturbed by her love
of women. She never sees the wrong in
it. It’s the others who see it and are
brusque towards it. This novel is thus an
apprentissage for those who do wrong,
those who reject, those who believe
religion is incompatible with a love that
goes outside of heteronormative cases. It
draws an example of a young woman
accepting herself without questioning
herself nor her God but those who
spread his message. A novel, all in all,
throwing in words all the resentment she
could have felt whilst facing a community
who wanted her to change because she
did not correspond to their image of
faith. But Jeanette Winterson was not
taken down by that, and her faith goes
on, and her love goes on, and her life as
well, spreading a message of peace and
acceptance - a small village girl, religious
as hell, growing up to be gay and happy.
What a crime, right?
Further reading:
Jeanette Winterson, by Sonya Andwermahr,
Palgrave HE UK; 2008 edition
Jeanette Winterson, by Onega Jaén
Susana, Manchester New York Manchester
university press cop. 2006
Jeannette Winterson, The Art of Fiction N.
150, interviewed by Audrey Bilger, issue 145,
winter 1997 for The Paris Review
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