When a small feminist press published Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle in 1973, the novel sold 70,000 copies despite being almost completely ignored by reviewers at major magazines and periodicals. In 1977 the book was reissued by Bantam Books and went on to sell over one million copies.
Rubyfruit Jungle chronicles the life of a young woman named Molly Bolt.
Starting with her childhood in Pennsylvania, the book follows her adolescence in Florida and her later adventures in New York. Her relationships with other women are also a major source of focus and conflict in the novel. Many of the events and characters in the book draw from Brown's own early years.
Rubyfruit Jungle fits into the tradition of the picaresque novel, which typically follows the adventures of a socially or financially marginalized protagonist, such as Huck Finn in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). The book is unique within the picaresque tradition in that both the protagonist and the author are female.
This complete Introduction contains 165 words. This
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