Rita Will : Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser

Rating:
Summary: a master of understatement
Review: Rita Mae Brown is like another well-known Southern aristocrat, Florence King, in both her rapier wit and sexual proclivities. In this nicely put-together memoir, Brown just tears them down. Born feisty and illegitimate, she describes the flowering of her writing and the half-insane family who raised her. She has a way with understatement and surprise, surprise, sex is very rarely mentioned. Odd, for a lady who was slapped with the lesbian label very early in her writing career. Shows a great strength of character and a snubbing of the nose. She is funny and poignant. This is a really good read!

Rating:
Summary: Funny and Wild
Review: This book is hilarious--several times I found myself laughing out loud at something she said. I minused out one star because of her blatant southern-centricism--she thinks most of us Yankees are rude, and that only southerners possess real manners. My little tabby cat Sammy says PFFFFFTTT to that.
Her account of the Martina/Judy galimony brouhaha is especially hilarious, with poor Rita Mae stuck in the middle, trying to encourage the two to settle things amicably. She gives a highly unflattering (but probably true) portrait of Judy Nelson. Her first impression of Judy was: "How often do you meet a woman whose hair can be ruined by a ceiling fan?" That one cracks me up every time. She talks about some of her relationships with women, most notable those with Martina Navratilova, Fannie Flagg, and Judy Nelson.
She relates the struggles she went through getting a college education and establishing her writing career, but she manages to keep things light by peppering amusing anecdotes of family life (and reactions) in between the more serious passages. She talks about her days as an lesbian feminist activist with Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, which I found to be of great interest, as she worked closely with these famous women. She is not kind to Billie Jean King, declaring, "Some people get the face they deserve as they grow old; Billie Jean also got the thighs she deserved." MEOOWWW. Sneaky Pie must have contributed that one.
This is a thoroughly enjoyable read, full of Southern wit and charm. If you're a fan of Rita Mae's work, you'll love reading her real-life story.