Jane Rule life and biography

Jane Rule, also known as Jane Vance Rule born March 28, 1931 in Plainfield, New Jersey - died November 27, 2007 in Galiano Island, British Columbia, Canada was a Canadian writer.

Jane Rule is a prominent lesbian writer and one of Canada's leading authors. In addition to her first and best known work, Desert of the Heart (1964), Rule has published six other novels, as well as a pioneering book of lesbian criticism, Lesbian Images (1975), and numerous short stories and essays. Rule considers herself a realist writer; she is committed to conveying truths about a world that she defines as "whole," "real," and "mixed." Perhaps for this reason, lesbian and gay concerns are at times central, at other times peripheral to her work's sustained exploration of individual development, especially in relation to community and landscape. Rule has received a number of awards, including the Canadian Authors' Association Award for Best Novel (1978), the Benson and Hedges Award for Best Short Stories (1978), the Literary Award for Gay Academic Union (1978), and the Fund for Human Dignity's Award of Merit (1983). In 1994 the University of British Columbia presented her with an honorary doctorate.

"Sidelights"

Jane Rule's fiction explores the varieties of human relationships, with special emphasis on lesbianism and multi-generational nurturing. Rule explores all facets of women's lives and experiences and is noted for creating important characters of all ages. To quote Wendy Robbins Keitner in Contemporary Novelists, "Rule's persistent theme is the tyranny of conventional morality, which marginalizes the handicapped and nonconforming, set against a more generous and innovative concept of community, which values human differences." In Quill and Quire, Bill Schermbrucker noted: "Jane Rule puts her own moral vision ahead of conventions that please critics. . . . Rule's career, like her life, has involved a persistent and articulate assertion of herself in the face of the ignorance, bigotry, and denial that surrounds lesbians and books about relationships between women."

Born in New Jersey, Rule grew up in the United States and received her college education there. She moved to British Columbia after becoming appalled by the McCarthy-era communist hysteria and its insidious effect upon American homosexuals. While living in Vancouver in the mid-1950s, she began a lasting relationship with Helen Sonthoff, a college professor. The two women bought a series of homes in the Vancouver area, culminating in their purchase of a property on the island of Galiano, where they live today.

Writing had always been an important part of Rule's life, but she had considerable difficulty finding a publisher for her first novel, The Desert of the Heart. The story charts the relationship of two women who meet by chance in Reno, Nevada--one an English teacher visiting the city to obtain a divorce from her husband and the other a casino worker currently dating two losers. The women fall in love and walk away from their respective male relationships, realizing that in doing so they are flying in the face of restrictive conventional morality. No American publisher would buy the novel, and even after Macmillan of Canada accepted it in 1961, it took another three years until publication. Similarly, Rule's second novel, This Is Not for You, languished without a publisher until a new editor at McCall Publishing, who had previously admired the manuscript at another publishing establishment which rejected it, bought and published it.

Desert of the Heart ultimately found a wide audience and has been translated into German, Dutch, French, and Italian. It has also been adapted as a film. Reviewing the book for New Statesman, Christopher Salved wrote: "This is an intelligent novel, not afraid of ideas and not committed to them over-diagrammatically." Likewise, Best Sellers contributor Anne Constance Pena found the work "an objective portrayal of love between two women . . . skillfully delineated by Miss Rule." This Is Not for You offers another take upon lesbian love, as the protagonist, Kate, struggles to keep her friendship with another woman within the bounds of convention. In Library Journal, Jody Haberland described This Is Not for You as "sensitive yet almost documentary," declaring the book "extraordinary."

Theme for Diverse Instruments departs from Rule's earlier fiction, offering a series of short pieces. Elizabeth Fishel wrote in the New York Times Book Review that the collection "is uneven as well as diverse, presenting brassy, almost snide stories along with sweet and reflective ones, quirky and memorable pieces along with others that strike jarring notes." In Publishers Weekly, Penny Kaganoff remarked that Rule's "accomplished" fiction "values individuality; conformity for its own sake is held in low esteem." Latham further contended in Library Journal that "the volume of stories belongs in all lesbian fiction collections."

Rule became an important voice in both Canada and the United States with the publication of Lesbian Images, a selection of essays on feminist and lesbian writers. In the book Rule attempts to trace the evidence and appearance of lesbianism in certain female authors and their work, and she gives a candid description of her own situation as well. As Victoria Glendinning noted in the Times Literary Supplement, " Lesbian Images is a very personal book, adding nevertheless that "the study of lesbianism in women writers which forms the main part of this book is unrewarding. There is little new that can be said in a few pages about Redcliffe Hall and Gertrude Stein." Conversely, a Publishers Weekly reviewer deemed the book "nicely balanced, feeling, instructive and altogether very worthwhile," and in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Constance Rooks cited the work for its lucid, scholarly contribution to women s studies.

Returning to the novel form, in The Young in One Another's Arms Rule explores the peculiar relationships in a Vancouver boarding house. As the lives of the lodgers intermingle, each person eventually experiences some significant crisis, causing changes in their individual and collective relationships. When the city condemns and sells the boarding house, the group moves to a Gulf island off the Vancouver shore to operate a restaurant. While Publishers Weekly contributor Barbara A. Brannon perceived the characters as "a depressing group of shadowy people, hard to empathize with," a Kirkus Reviews critic claimed that the book "is simply written, . . . and genuinely touching." Journal of Canadian Fiction essayist Carrie Macmillan observed of The Young in One Another s Arms: There are several fine qualities of this novel, one of the finest being Rule's style which is mature and sure, often lyrical and beautiful. The novel won the Canadian Authors Association prize in 1978.

Another collection of essays and stories, Outlander proposes "that lesbianism is as diverse as the world of heterosexuality," maintained Sherrie Tuck in Library Journal. The twenty-five pieces were mostly published earlier in periodicals and were collected in this volume by Rule's most loyal publisher, Naiad Press. A Kirkus Reviews critic observed that the essays in Outlander "are short, to the point, admonitory, unabashedly clubby," while the stories "stretch a little further." The reviewer concluded that Rule's Outlander compares favorably with other works in the genre.

Rule's next novel, Memory Board "explores an unusual situation: the love triangle affected by memory loss, which attracts readers' curiosity . . . and then turns into commentary on our more ordinary lives," explained Eleanor Johnston in Canadian Literature. Johnston further commented that Rule's two central concerns--old age and homosexuality are described with a precision and respect which compel the reader's involvement with three people who, from the perspective of modern culture, are grotesque old fogeys."Addressing Rule's place in the Canadian literary scene, the critic suggested that with Memory Board, "Rule has taken up the CanLit tradition of moral exploration while struggling to overcome its reputation of dullness."

After the Fire examines the interactions of five women living on one of British Columbia's Gulf Islands. Schermbrucker hailed the book as "an engaging, tightly plotted novel about interdependent lives and generations." With connecting threads weaving through the lives of the five protagonists--who range in age from teen-aged to elderly and in experience from pregnant to divorced to sinisterly--circumstances compel all the characters to learn about themselves as both individuals and friends. Publishers Weekly reviewer Kaganoff remarked that the book's "warmth is not saccharine but realistic," and Roz Calvin wrote in the Times Literary Supplement that the book "allows the malicious and petty-minded to damn themselves, or come to wisdom at their own speed." Calvin added: "This is a book which tries for no moments of grandeur or deep passion, but has a wistful dignity entirely its own."

In response to questions about her body of work, Rule told Quill and Quire's Schermbrucker that she generally ignores public opinion. "I'm really not interested in acceptance," Rule said. "I think it's a terrible curse when people are. Self-acceptance is important. But I would hope to be as free as it's possible to be of doing things because I'm expected to." The reviewer further mentioned that Rule consistently answers to her own muse, rejecting outside influences on her writing or her personal choices. Schermbrucker concluded that Rule's is "a world in which voices speak clearly, with humour and great caring, and with tolerance and appreciation of one another's lives."

For many years Rule has suffered with severe arthritis. That fact plus her conviction that she has made her point in her published works has restricted her literary output for nearly a decade. In Ms. magazine, Bertha Harris commended Rule for her skillful interweaving of plot and psychology, temperament and circumstance, life and work, adding: Those who love Jane Rule's fiction . . . will find themselves . . . keeping pleasureable company with the novelist who brought civilizing sense to the heartbreak-and-booze tradition in modern lesbian fiction. Constance Rooks remarked that Rule's novels are intellectual, though not very difficult; they are also passionate and tender and optimistic. Rooks concluded: "For all its cool intelligence, [Rule's] work invites a warm, personal response. Both her essays and her fiction have a particular fascination for women. The voice that speaks in Rule's work is characterized, above all, by honesty and tolerance; and the attractiveness of her work is very much a function of that voice."

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Born March 28, 1931, in Plainfield, NJ; died of complications from liver cancer, November 27, 2007, in Galiano Island, British Columbia, Canada; daughter of Arthur Richards (a businessman) and Jane (Packer; one source says "Hink") Rule. Education: Mills College, B.A., 1952. Avocational Interests: Civil liberties and international aid programs, gardening, collecting paintings. Memberships: PEN International, Writers Union of Canada, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS

Canada Council bursary, 1970-72; Canadian Authors' Association, award for best novel of 1978, for The Young in One Another's Arms, award for best short story of 1978, for "Joy"; Literature Award, American Gay Academic Association, 1978; award of merit, Fund for Human Dignity, 1983; Talking Book of the Year Award, Canadian Institute for the Blind, 1991.

CAREER

Writer. Concord Academy, Concord, MA, teacher of English, 1954-56; University of British Columbia, Vancouver, assistant director of International House, 1958-59, periodic lecturer in English, 1959-70, visiting lecturer in creative writing, 1973-74. Has worked variously as typist, teacher of handicapped children, change maker in a gambling house, and store clerk, mostly to obtain background material and information.

WRITINGS

* The Desert of the Heart (novel), Macmillan (Canada), 1964, World Publishing, 1965.
* This Is Not for You (novel), McCall Publishing, 1970.
* Against the Season (novel), McCall Publishing, 1971.
* Theme for Diverse Instruments (short stories), Talon Books (Vancouver), 1975.
* Lesbian Images (criticism), Doubleday (Canada), 1975 , Crossing Press (Trumansburg, NY), 1982.
* The Young in One Another's Arms (novel), Doubleday (New York City), 1977.
* Contract with the World (novel), Harcourt (New York City), 1980.
* Outlander (short stories and essays) Naiad Press (Tallahassee, FL), 1981.
* A Hot-Eyed Moderate, Naiad Press, 1985.
* Inland Passage and Other Stories (fiction), Naiad Press, 1985.
* Memory Board (fiction), Naiad Press, 1987.
* After the Fire (novel), Naiad Press, 1989.
* Theme for Diverse Instruments, Naiad Press (Tallahassee, FL), 1990.

Work is represented in anthologies, including Best Short Stories of 1972, Oberon, 1972; Stories from Pacific and Arctic Canada,Macmillan, 1975; and Flaunting It, edited by Ed Jackson and Stan Persky, Pink Triangle Press, 1982. Author of column "So's Your Grandmother" in Body Politic. Contributor of reviews and articles to periodicals, including Canadian Literature, Redbook,Chatelaine, San Francisco Review, Housewife, Queen's Quarterly, and Globe and Mail.

MEDIA ADAPTATIONS

The Desert of the Heart was released as the Donna Deitch film Desert Hearts, 1985; Fiction and Other Truths: A Film about Jane Rule was released by the Cinema Guild, 1995; a film version of Memory Board is planned.

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