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How faith becomes a weapon: 'If I can't understand it, it's not Christian'
How faith becomes a weapon: 'If I can't understand it, it's not Christian'

Indianapolis Star

time16-07-2025

  • General
  • Indianapolis Star

How faith becomes a weapon: 'If I can't understand it, it's not Christian'

(Editor's note: This is an excerpt from "The Light In Our Eyes" by Nicholas McDonald Copyright © 2025 by Nicholas McDonald. Published by Multnomah, an imprint of Penguin Random House Christian Publishing Group LLC. Used by permission.) My first job in a church was on the south side of Indianapolis in a little trailer park village. I liked the village and the people in it, but truth be told, the church I worked at gave me the willies. My first day on the job, I walked into the sanctuary and saw a giant American flag on stage. I thought maybe it was a temporary placement, but it turns out the flag was part of the church's worship service, right alongside the pulpit and the choir. The pastor sat me down and said that I was to use only the King James Bible and that I needed to be teachable. I asked why the King James Version of the Bible was so important, since King James lived 1,500 years after Jesus' disciples in continental Europe. He explained to me that God works just like we expect Him to, and if He doesn't, He can't be God. I told him it didn't make sense to me why Jesus would have had 12 Jewish disciples in His lifetime and then a 13th White one named King James 1,500 years later so he could write the true Bible for us. The pastor said all that didn't matter and told me to stop asking questions. Opinion: Searching for peace and God's love in a final prayer for my grandpa I learned a lot after that, and I tried to be teachable. I learned that America was going to hell in a handbasket, and I learned southern gospel songs, crooning about wanting to leave this ol' world to go off to heaven far, far, far away. At the end of every service, the pastor had everyone close their eyes and raise their hands if they wanted to accept Jesus as their Savior. He said, 'I see that hand' many times each Sunday, which was impressive at first, but then it was confusing because the same people were at church every week. The math didn't exactly add up. In the meantime, I was working with a youth group of 40 to 50 low- income students from the trailer park. I asked the pastor if we could start a reading program for the kids in the church or think about building a skate park so they'd have something to do after school. The pastor said that I was focusing too much on social things and that all I needed to do was preach the Bible, get the kids saved, and go home. 'But here is another thing,' I said. 'They don't really understand the King James Bible.' 'Well, they used to,' he said. 'But they don't,' I said. 'Well, they should!' he said. 'So what do you want me to do about that?' I asked. 'Do you want me to start a tutoring program so I can teach them how to read 17th-century English?' I'm not saying I was being an angel. Also, I don't think the folks who went to the church were bad people, because at least one of them found a way to start a food pantry, even if it was against the church's theology about getting saved. But after a few months, it became clear my wife and I couldn't stay. Stories of abuse, perversion, and coverup from the leadership came leaking out. We experienced this abuse in various ways (I won't go into them for our privacy), all of which have lingering effects on our lives today. The pastor gave himself and others a pass on these behaviors, however, because our church was based on God's 'grace.' I liked God's grace and all, but I was confused by the way the pastor used that word. To him it seemed to mean a lot of things, like how the pastor could be in charge of people's lives, hire sexual predators if he thought they'd help his ministry, and take financial advantage of young couples. Grace was flexible that way, and grace seemed to be working out pretty well for him, although it wasn't working out so well for the trailer park community. I couldn't understand a faith that looked so little like Jesus' life on earth, all in the name of 'grace.' It was hard for me to picture a lot of hungry and sick people sitting around Jesus and Him saying, 'We're not going to focus on your worldly needs, but anyway, who wants to be a follower of mine? I see that hand.' They would raise their hands, and Jesus would send them back to their normal lives, because now they could leave this ol' world someday and go far, far, far away to heaven. Up until this point, I didn't think I cared about theology. But at this church I saw that bad theology can be a weapon. It can destroy people's lives. It can abuse people. It can justify all kinds of ugly things. The more I spent time in this church, the more it seemed like Worldview Camp: We were using Jesus to protect us. One moment made this all clear to me. A few months into my time at the church, I was hosting an after-school program and playing some Christian rap for the students. We were interrupted by pounding footsteps from the church offices upstairs. I ran up to see what was the matter, and I was met in the hallway by the pastor, who looked as red as if he'd just swallowed a whole chicken drumstick. 'What is this crap?' he said, gesturing to the radio. 'Oh,' I said. 'It's Christian rap music. Our students listen to rap, and I thought it would be good to introduce them to it.' 'Listen,' he said, pointing his finger at me. 'If I can't understand it, it's not Christian! Turn it off!' I've thought about that a lot over the years, and it's a pretty good summary of Bully Evangelicalism's theory about life. If we can't understand it, it's not Christian.

Shakespeare's 'As You Like It' opens at Grand Forks' Town Square
Shakespeare's 'As You Like It' opens at Grand Forks' Town Square

Yahoo

time13-06-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Yahoo

Shakespeare's 'As You Like It' opens at Grand Forks' Town Square

Jun. 13—GRAND FORKS — Curt Tofteland has always been quite comfortable with the renowned works of William Shakespeare, because he became familiar with the Bard's style of writing at a young age. The 16th Century playwright, poet and actor is widely considered the greatest writer in the English language. "I was raised on the King James Bible, which was written in the time period that Shakespeare was writing," said Tofteland, who grew up in Martin, North Dakota, a tiny Sheridan County town 10 miles west of Harvey. "When you're raised on the King James Bible, you don't think it's odd that they say 'thee' and 'thou.' So I didn't have the same kind of aversion to the language that perhaps some of my other classmates had." Tofteland, of Holland, Michigan, is directing the North Dakota Shakespeare Festival production of "As You Like It," which opened Thursday, June 12, at Town Square, DeMers Avenue and Third Street. This is the first production he's directed for the festival. Rehearsals have been taking place at UND's Burtness Theater. Performances are scheduled for 7 p.m. on Thursdays through Saturdays, June 12-14 and 19-21. A matinee is also planned for 2 p.m. Sunday, June 15. Admission is free; donations are welcome. Reservations are requested at , but walk-ins are welcome. Attendees are encouraged to bring lawn chairs and blankets. "As You Like It" is presented by the North Dakota Shakespeare Festival, now in its ninth season. A performance will be staged at 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 18, on the lawn of Grand Forks Public Library, 2110 Library Circle; attendees should bring their own lawn chairs and blankets. It will also be performed June 26-30 and July 3-7 in Medora, North Dakota, and July 1 in Lemmon, South Dakota. The play, performed by professionals from throughout the country, is "a delightful pastoral comedy," said Stephanie Faatz Murry, producing artistic director, North Dakota Shakespeare Festival. It is "a joyful tale of love, wit and transformation under the forest canopy." Tofteland said, "'As You Like It' is considered by many folks that are Shakespeare experts, as the female 'Hamlet' in length and breadth. ... In a number of Shakespeare's plays, the female character disguises herself as a male — and that's true of (this play). "The great thing about (this play) — as in many of Shakespeare's comedies — is no one gets killed," he said. "And it's about love and people fall in love and usually the play ends with a marriage. In this instance, the play ends with multiple marriages." The story starts out in the urban world, "then it transposes to the pastoral world, which is the forest, so most of the play happens out in the country," he said. "We thought it was a great play to do in North Dakota, being primarily an agrarian culture and society." The local production promises to delight audiences because "it is one of Shakespeare's plays that has the most amount of music in it," Tofteland said, noting the talent of Erin O'Neil, an East Grand Forks fiddler. The play boasts "a lot of singing and dancing," including a square dance, which he expects will resonate with North Dakota audiences, he said. Also it features musicians who play the ukulele, accordion and percussion. Cast and crew members include Abby Anderson, as Rosalind; Andrew Bates, scenic designer; Murray, as Celia, Audrey and Lord; Tyler Folkedahl, as Duke Senior, Corwin and Sir Oliver Martext; Veronica Lee Folkedahl, as Phoebe, Duke Frederick and Oliver; Michael Matthys, as Touchstone, Adam, Silvius, Hymen and Jaques de Boys; O'Neil, as lead musician, Amiens, William and Lord; Alexandra Rice, stage manager; Tyler Smith, sound engineer; Mark Swift, Jaques and Charles; Emily Taylor, costume designer; and Christopher Zou, as Orlando. Along with Tofteland, the UND alumni are Taylor, Smooth, the Folkedahls, Rice and O'Neil. A North Dakota native, Tofteland attended his first eight grades in school at Martin and completed his high school education in Harvey, North Dakota, where an English teacher ignited his interest in Shakespeare's plays by introducing him, as a junior, to the tragedy "Romeo and Juliet." In 1968, as a senior, he watched Franco Zeffirelli's newly-released film, of the same name, in a Harvey, North Dakota, theater. Tofteland earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from UND — one of the first BFA degrees conferred — with an emphasis on vocal performance, in 1974, he said. He also had concentrations in theater and creative writing with a focus on poetry. Tofteland has built a career celebrating the Bard's work. During his 20-year tenure as the producing artistic director Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, he has produced about 50 Shakespeare productions, directed 25, and acted in eight. The Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, the oldest free Shakespeare festival in North America, he said. A professional director and an Equity actor, Tofteland has more than 200 professional productions to his credit. He has presented more than 400 performances of his one-man show "Shakespeare's Clownes: A Foole's Guide to Shakespeare". Tofteland has earned international acclaim for his work with "Shakespeare Behind Bars," a program he created 34 years ago to influence the lives of people in prisons and juvenile detention centers. Tofteland is "a bit of a legend in the Shakespeare Community" for the program "that brings Shakespeare performance opportunities to incarcerated men and women," Murry said. As founder of "Shakespeare Behind Bars," Tofteland has produced and directed 14 all-male Shakespeare plays. The work is "transformational," he said. Under this program, "we have about 500 prisoners who've been released. Our recidivism rate is less than 6% over 30 years, whereas the national average is 67% come back within five years." To learn more about the SBB program, go to and watch the award-winning documentary by Philomath Films, which premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and traveled to more than 40 film festivals, winning 11 awards.

The new SLO County missionaries: From conquest to coexistence
The new SLO County missionaries: From conquest to coexistence

Yahoo

time01-06-2025

  • General
  • Yahoo

The new SLO County missionaries: From conquest to coexistence

Colonizers come in all creeds, cultures, and colors. I know. I am one. White, but born in Nigeria. Raised on tales of imperial contradiction and the soft hypocrisy of good intentions, I recognize cultural conquest when I see it. And I see it now in San Luis Obispo County. Only this time, the missionaries wear yoga pants and BLM T-shirts. When the British colonized Africa, they came with muskets, trinkets and the King James Bible. At least they were honest enough to say, 'We're here to civilize and trade.' No one claimed they moved to Lagos for the weather. Contrast that with SLO County. Today's colonizers arrive not in redcoats but Teslas. They marvel that Paso Roblans wave at the sheriff, not because they're high, but because they know his name. They ask, 'Why is there an American flag outside the church, but no LGBTQ++ flag in the classroom?' This isn't just demographic drift. It's felt like a cultural coup. Yes, the change has come through ballots not bayonets, but the effect is no less perturbing. In 1990, San Luis Obispo County was a Republican stronghold. The GOP held 52% of registrations, outnumbering Democrats by more than 21,000 voters. A political landscape as red as a SLO County sunset. Today, the tide has turned. Democrats now lead by over 5,000 voters, holding 38% to the GOP's 35%. What was once a bastion of agrarian grit and frontier faith has been re-tilled and replanted into a progressive outpost. Cal Poly, once an apolitical haven for ag and engineering, now resembles a Berkeley annex with rodeo, oenology and trigger warnings. For a crowd obsessed with condemning 19th-century colonialism, 21st-century progressives seem oddly eager to reenact it. They denounce empire while building their own. Like missionaries with MacBooks, they believe the locals are running outdated software in desperate need of an upgrade. They seize school boards like administrators with manifest destiny, introduce DEI programs like colonial governors introducing cricket, and dismantle tradition in the name of 'equity.' The natives, of course, must be saved from themselves. Always the excuse of the colonizer. However, while it's easy to critique the colonizers, the harder task is the cure. History teaches us that conquest is easy; coexistence is hard, but not impossible. Look to Botswana, Canada and parts of Europe where cultures, when not hell-bent on dominance, manage to share a flag and a future. So can we. The first step? Ditch the missionary robes and martyr complexes. Abandon the intoxicating binary of 'left' versus 'right'. Of 'us' versus 'them'. If local leaders and activists of The Democrats and GOP such as Tom Fulks, Bruce Gibson, Randall Jordan, John Peschong, Moms for Liberty and The Lonely Liberals can pursue their agendas with mutual respect, we may yet replace cultural conquest with something more lasting and meaningful, genuine coexistence. We need a politics of 'and' not 'or'. Heritage and innovation. Liberty and responsibility. Compassion and common sense. These aren't enemies, they're nutrients in the soil of civil society. Civilization doesn't demand that we trade truth for tolerance. We can honor pride without erasing patriotism. We must prioritize pragmatism over purity. Real change doesn't spring from ideology; it grows from ideas that work. In SLO County, that means fixing water infrastructure before funding unconscious bias seminars. Building affordable homes before signaling virtue. Upholding academic standards over chasing DEI quotas and union indulgences. Progress isn't a performance, it's a plan. Let's get back to one. Judge policy not by whether it's progressive or conservative, but by whether it improves lives. We don't need a crusade; we need a Local Civic Compact. A shared vow, from newcomers and natives alike, to preserve what made this place worth moving to in the first place. Free speech, even when it bruises. Education, not indoctrination. Heritage, not hysteria. Conversation over creed. Dialogue over dogma. Let Paso be Paso. Let the Five Cities, Cayucos and Cambria surf their own waves. SLO County is not Hollywood with vineyards or Silicon Valley in cowboy boots. The closer power sits to the people, the more likely it serves them. If we look to Sacramento to dictate our values, we become vassals in someone else's experiment. Which brings us to the final question: Do we want to be right, or do we want to make a difference? Being right is easy. We can play keyboard warriors and bask in our own cognitive dissonance. However, making a difference takes compromise. It means losing a few fights so others might win something lasting. Real progress begins not with purging, but persuasion. SLO County stands at the intersection of two American impulses. The grit that built it from the ground up, and the orthodoxy now eager to remodel it from the top down. We need humility to admit we don't know everything and the courage to defend what we do. Progress, like truth, doesn't shout. It listens. It holds the past not as an anchor, but as a compass. Let's not mistake moral conceit for civic virtue. Civilizations don't endure because one wins. They endure because both sides grow up. Together. Or, as Twain might have said, 'The secret to getting along ain't agreeing, it's remembering you've got to keep living next door after the shouting stops.' Colonizer Clive Pinder married into a fifth-generation Paso Robles family. He lives in Templeton, hosts CeaseFire on KVEC radio and opinionizes for The Tribune. Find more of his columns at

Forty years on, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit still tells a radical truth
Forty years on, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit still tells a radical truth

Sydney Morning Herald

time12-05-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Sydney Morning Herald

Forty years on, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit still tells a radical truth

When Jeanette Winterson was 23, she had an interview at the new feminist publisher, Pandora Press, hoping to be their publicist. She didn't get the job. But the way she talked about her extremely strange childhood impressed the publisher, Philippa Brewster, who told Winterson, 'If you can write it the way you tell it, I'll buy it.' Winterson had always written: sermons, stories to herself to try to make sense of the world. She hadn't tried to write a novel. 'I thought, I'll sit down and see what happens,' she says. 'I had no idea about gender, sexism, all of that.' But although she came from a family where non-religious books were banned, her mother had read to her daily from the King James Bible, which gave her a love of language, story and structure. What emerged was the fictionalised story of growing up in working-class Accrington, Lancashire, as the adopted child of an eccentric and fiercely Pentecostal evangelist mother. 'I thought I could write my way out,' she says. 'Language is something I can trust, so I can see the inside of my head. You need to be able to write yourself as a fiction, to understand you're a story in progress. I didn't need to be trapped in a narrative that belonged to somebody else.' The story was funny, awfully bizarre and bizarrely awful – what other child would have her deafness ignored because it was thought she was in a state of rapture? – but to the child Jeanette, it was just life, getting on with things while waiting for Jesus to come and roll up heaven like a scroll. Until at 16 she fell in love with a girl, and everything came apart. When you're a young person and you don't have anything, you believe it can only get better. After a few months of writing, she cycled back to Pandora with the only copy of her manuscript in her saddlebag (she couldn't afford to photocopy it). This time Pandora's other boss, Australian feminist Dale Spender, was in the office with Brewster. 'Dale snatched the manuscript and read the beginning. Like most people, I lived for a long time with my mother and father. My father liked to watch the wrestling, my mother liked to wrestle. She turned to Philippa and said, 'This is good.' I thought, Oh, there's a way in for me.' That manuscript became the hugely successful novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, published in 1985. The current publishers, Vintage Classics, are sending their star author around the world to celebrate the book's 40th anniversary. I read it in one breathless swoop, and like many fans, I can't believe it's been 40 years since. Nor can Winterson. She is talking to me from her home in the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire. Behind her are windows with a view of the woods and the sun is casting a halo over her curly head. An eager and fervent speaker, she still has her Northern accent. 'I was brought up in a gospel tent, I'm never nervous public speaking,' she says. 'They book me in for a lot of big events. The more people the better. I'm trying to present to people what I believe, that's part of my job.' She's keen to find the positives in even the worst things that have happened to her, and she's hopeful for the future where other writers are gloomy, particularly over her pet subject, the challenges we face with AI. In the early days, Oranges was sometimes slotted into the cookery bookshelves with the marmalade recipes. Later, it made its way onto the LGBTQ shelves. Now it's in with the literary classics and has found new generations of readers around the world. Winterson has since written 10 novels, as well as children's books, nonfiction and screenplays, including one for the prizewinning BBC TV adaptation of Oranges. She has won many awards, including a CBE and an OBE for services to literature, and her work is published in 28 countries. Young people respond to Orange' s queer coming of age story in China and Hungary. 'It's a classic, I'm not the kind of person they would want to ban. At this point in my life I have some useful status, I can get to places other people can't. I'm hoping because it's so well known and well-loved, it will be a kind of raft you can cling onto.' There wasn't much for young Jeanette to cling to when she fell in love. Mrs Winterson and her fellow church members held an exorcism, chanting continuous prayers, speaking in tongues and laying their hands on Jeanette. It had a hypnotic effect, she says. 'They do believe people are inhabited by devils and they can be expelled. But obviously to a young girl it was frightening.' Inevitably, teenage Jeanette had to leave home. She moved around for a couple of years, studying and working, living in a tent and sleeping on other people's floors. 'I thought, I can't pretend to be the person they want me to be. By then, things had broken down and were so full of distress and sadness that to stay would have been far worse.' One of her best times was living in a Mini, with its boot full of her favourite books. 'It wasn't as dramatic as it would be now. I felt free, I wasn't afraid. When you're a young person and you don't have anything, you believe it can only get better.' She eventually made her way to Oxford University to study English literature. 'It was wonderful, I was free to study. It was also a huge cultural shock because people like me were not there in any numbers. I didn't fit. But it changed my life completely; I was able to move into a different world.' Loading Winterson returned to her early years in 2012, this time in a memoir with the title from one of her mother's inspired sayings, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? She had come through a painful period after an attempted suicide and felt she needed to go back. With more distance between her and her childhood, she felt free to mention darker things. 'There's a lot more pain and hurt in that book. I could go back to some of the material and not have to disguise it.' One of Mrs Winterson's sayings was 'The devil had led me to the wrong crib'. Still, Winterson can see the bright side: 'It's absolutely appalling, but full of metaphor and colour. Suddenly we're not in a crummy two-up and two-down. We're in a fairy tale, an opera, a grand landscape where the devil will bother to come and deceive Mrs Winterson.' In the memoir, she details her quest to find her birth mother. She succeeded, but it turned out to be a mixed blessing. 'I was glad I found her. I wanted other adopted people to understand if they take that route, they shouldn't imagine there is going to be a pink focus, happy Hollywood ending. We're all going to do our best, but it's fine for it to go wrong.' Loading Winterson did have a reunion with her adoptive father before he died. 'I was angry with him for a long time for not standing up for me, and for beating me. I was glad I could meet him on his own terms, there was no point in going in for explanation. Dad was like a very little boy. I thought he was never really allowed to grow up.' Mrs Winterson died when her daughter was 30, so there was never time for a reunion. In any case, she thinks it would have been impossible. 'She was an absolutist. For her to recognise what happened to me would have reversed everything she believed. She was a deeply unhappy woman, and unhappiness closes you down.' When Winterson wrote Oranges, 'in my innocence I didn't realise that women were only ever supposed to write about their own experience in a small way. But I don't care. If people are still reading it, if it can still be in print 40 years later, all over the world, I have got something right.'

Forty years on, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit still tells a radical truth
Forty years on, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit still tells a radical truth

The Age

time12-05-2025

  • Entertainment
  • The Age

Forty years on, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit still tells a radical truth

When Jeanette Winterson was 23, she had an interview at the new feminist publisher, Pandora Press, hoping to be their publicist. She didn't get the job. But the way she talked about her extremely strange childhood impressed the publisher, Philippa Brewster, who told Winterson, 'If you can write it the way you tell it, I'll buy it.' Winterson had always written: sermons, stories to herself to try to make sense of the world. She hadn't tried to write a novel. 'I thought, I'll sit down and see what happens,' she says. 'I had no idea about gender, sexism, all of that.' But although she came from a family where non-religious books were banned, her mother had read to her daily from the King James Bible, which gave her a love of language, story and structure. What emerged was the fictionalised story of growing up in working-class Accrington, Lancashire, as the adopted child of an eccentric and fiercely Pentecostal evangelist mother. 'I thought I could write my way out,' she says. 'Language is something I can trust, so I can see the inside of my head. You need to be able to write yourself as a fiction, to understand you're a story in progress. I didn't need to be trapped in a narrative that belonged to somebody else.' The story was funny, awfully bizarre and bizarrely awful – what other child would have her deafness ignored because it was thought she was in a state of rapture? – but to the child Jeanette, it was just life, getting on with things while waiting for Jesus to come and roll up heaven like a scroll. Until at 16 she fell in love with a girl, and everything came apart. When you're a young person and you don't have anything, you believe it can only get better. After a few months of writing, she cycled back to Pandora with the only copy of her manuscript in her saddlebag (she couldn't afford to photocopy it). This time Pandora's other boss, Australian feminist Dale Spender, was in the office with Brewster. 'Dale snatched the manuscript and read the beginning. Like most people, I lived for a long time with my mother and father. My father liked to watch the wrestling, my mother liked to wrestle. She turned to Philippa and said, 'This is good.' I thought, Oh, there's a way in for me.' That manuscript became the hugely successful novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, published in 1985. The current publishers, Vintage Classics, are sending their star author around the world to celebrate the book's 40th anniversary. I read it in one breathless swoop, and like many fans, I can't believe it's been 40 years since. Nor can Winterson. She is talking to me from her home in the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire. Behind her are windows with a view of the woods and the sun is casting a halo over her curly head. An eager and fervent speaker, she still has her Northern accent. 'I was brought up in a gospel tent, I'm never nervous public speaking,' she says. 'They book me in for a lot of big events. The more people the better. I'm trying to present to people what I believe, that's part of my job.' She's keen to find the positives in even the worst things that have happened to her, and she's hopeful for the future where other writers are gloomy, particularly over her pet subject, the challenges we face with AI. In the early days, Oranges was sometimes slotted into the cookery bookshelves with the marmalade recipes. Later, it made its way onto the LGBTQ shelves. Now it's in with the literary classics and has found new generations of readers around the world. Winterson has since written 10 novels, as well as children's books, nonfiction and screenplays, including one for the prizewinning BBC TV adaptation of Oranges. She has won many awards, including a CBE and an OBE for services to literature, and her work is published in 28 countries. Young people respond to Orange' s queer coming of age story in China and Hungary. 'It's a classic, I'm not the kind of person they would want to ban. At this point in my life I have some useful status, I can get to places other people can't. I'm hoping because it's so well known and well-loved, it will be a kind of raft you can cling onto.' There wasn't much for young Jeanette to cling to when she fell in love. Mrs Winterson and her fellow church members held an exorcism, chanting continuous prayers, speaking in tongues and laying their hands on Jeanette. It had a hypnotic effect, she says. 'They do believe people are inhabited by devils and they can be expelled. But obviously to a young girl it was frightening.' Inevitably, teenage Jeanette had to leave home. She moved around for a couple of years, studying and working, living in a tent and sleeping on other people's floors. 'I thought, I can't pretend to be the person they want me to be. By then, things had broken down and were so full of distress and sadness that to stay would have been far worse.' One of her best times was living in a Mini, with its boot full of her favourite books. 'It wasn't as dramatic as it would be now. I felt free, I wasn't afraid. When you're a young person and you don't have anything, you believe it can only get better.' She eventually made her way to Oxford University to study English literature. 'It was wonderful, I was free to study. It was also a huge cultural shock because people like me were not there in any numbers. I didn't fit. But it changed my life completely; I was able to move into a different world.' Loading Winterson returned to her early years in 2012, this time in a memoir with the title from one of her mother's inspired sayings, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? She had come through a painful period after an attempted suicide and felt she needed to go back. With more distance between her and her childhood, she felt free to mention darker things. 'There's a lot more pain and hurt in that book. I could go back to some of the material and not have to disguise it.' One of Mrs Winterson's sayings was 'The devil had led me to the wrong crib'. Still, Winterson can see the bright side: 'It's absolutely appalling, but full of metaphor and colour. Suddenly we're not in a crummy two-up and two-down. We're in a fairy tale, an opera, a grand landscape where the devil will bother to come and deceive Mrs Winterson.' In the memoir, she details her quest to find her birth mother. She succeeded, but it turned out to be a mixed blessing. 'I was glad I found her. I wanted other adopted people to understand if they take that route, they shouldn't imagine there is going to be a pink focus, happy Hollywood ending. We're all going to do our best, but it's fine for it to go wrong.' Loading Winterson did have a reunion with her adoptive father before he died. 'I was angry with him for a long time for not standing up for me, and for beating me. I was glad I could meet him on his own terms, there was no point in going in for explanation. Dad was like a very little boy. I thought he was never really allowed to grow up.' Mrs Winterson died when her daughter was 30, so there was never time for a reunion. In any case, she thinks it would have been impossible. 'She was an absolutist. For her to recognise what happened to me would have reversed everything she believed. She was a deeply unhappy woman, and unhappiness closes you down.' When Winterson wrote Oranges, 'in my innocence I didn't realise that women were only ever supposed to write about their own experience in a small way. But I don't care. If people are still reading it, if it can still be in print 40 years later, all over the world, I have got something right.'

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