Desert of the Heart

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Jane Rule, Jackie Kay: Desert of the Heart (2010, Little, Brown Book Group Limited)

256 pages

English language

Published Dec. 1, 2010 by Little, Brown Book Group Limited.

ISBN:
978-1-84408-678-8
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3 stars (2 reviews)

Possibly Jane Rule's best known novel, The Desert of the Heart is the story of a free spirited woman falling for a repressed older woman. Evelyn Hall is taking respite at a ranch for women as she seeks a divorce after years of marriage. Written in 1964, it serves as a fascinating snapshot into the lives and regulations of women seeking their freedom.

Dr. Hall stays at a Nevada ranch where she meets, and falls for, Ann Child ("Evelyn looked at Ann, the child she had always wanted, the friend she once had, the lover she never considered..."). Evelyn Hall has a hard time fitting in, and Jane Rule cleverly captures the feeling of a fish out of water time after time. "Whenever there were generalizations about women, Evelyn weighed herself against them and found herself insubstantial," writes Rule, capturing the alienation Evelyn has even from her own gender.

Rule …

15 editions

Too much of its time

3 stars

Content warning General observations, Desert of the Heart

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rated it

3 stars

Subjects

  • Fiction, general
  • Lesbians, fiction

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