Nov 29, 2007Quickie Link: Jane Rule, 76: Lesbian author was role model
By Feral
Novelist Jane Rule, whose life and work were a combined statement in support of social equality and personal generosity, died last night of liver cancer at her home on Galiano Island, B.C.
She was 76.
Rule was equally known for her fiction and for her status as a lesbian role model.
"She was the first Canadian woman writer to write about being gay as if it was part of the normal life," Toronto novelist Susan Swan said last night from her Toronto home.
"There was no self-consciousness about it. There didn't seem to be any need for her to wave a political flag. This female character as a lesbian – you picked that up by reading the story. You weren't reading the story to find out what it was like to be a lesbian."
