The shocking, heartbreaking—and often very funny—true story behind Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit . In 1985, Jeanette Winterson's first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was published. It was Jeanette's own version of the story of a terraced house in Accrington, an adopted child, and the unfulfilled giantess, Mrs. Winterson. It was a cover-up, a painful past rewritten and repainted. It was a story of survival. This book is that story's silent twin. It is filled with pain and humor and a fierce love of life. It is about the search for happiness, lessons in love, the search for a mother, and a journey into and out of madness. It is generous, honest, and true.