Taking My Life

by Jane Rule, Linda Morra (Introduction)

Discovered in her papers as a handwritten manuscript in 2008, Jane Rule's autobiography is a rich and culturally significant document that follows the first twenty-one years of her life.In writing about her formative years, she is indeed "taking" the measure of her life, assessing its contours of pleasure and pain, and accounting precisely for how it evolved, with great discretion and consideration for those who might have been affected by being represented in her work. She appreciated the ambiguity of the title she chose, with all its implications of suicide: at the end of her writing life, she was submitting herself as a person, not only to the literary and cultural, but also the moral and ethical critique of her readers.At turns deeply moving and witty, Taking My Life probes in emotional and intellectual terms the larger philosophical questions that were to preoccupy her throughout her literary career, and showcases the origins and contexts that gave shape to Rule's rich intellectual life. Her autobiography will appeal to avid followers of her work, delighted to discover another of her works that has, until now, remained unpublished.

Genres: Autobiography, Queer, Memoir, Lesbian, Nonfiction, Writing, LGBT

288 pages, Paperback

First published October 11, 2011

About the author

Jane Vance Rule was a Canadian writer of lesbian-themed novels and non-fiction. American by birth and Canadian by choice, Rule's pioneering work as a writer and activist reached across borders.

Rule was born on March 28, 1931, in Plainfield, New Jersey, and raised in the Midwest and California. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Mills College in 1952. In 1954 she joined the faculty of the Concord Academy, a private school in Massachusetts. There Rule met Helen Sonthoff, a fellow faculty member who became her life partner. They settled in Vancouver in 1956. Eventually they both held positions at the University of British Columbia until 1976 when they moved to Galiano Island. Sonthoff died in 2000, at 83. Rule died at the age of 76 on November 28, 2007 at her home on Galiano Island due to complications from liver cancer, refusing any treatment that would take her from the island.

A major literary figure in Canada, she wrote seven novels as well as short stories and nonfiction. But it was for Desert of the Heart that she remained best known. The novel published in 1964, is about a professor of English literature who meets and falls in love with a casino worker in Reno. It was made into a movie by Donna Deitch called Desert Hearts in 1985, which quickly became a lesbian classic.

Rule, who became a Canadian citizen in the 1960s, was awarded the Order of British Columbia in 1998 and the Order of Canada in 2007. In 1994, Rule was the subject of a Genie-awarding winning documentary, Fiction and Other Truths; a film about Jane Rule, directed by Lynne Fernie and Aerlyn Weissman, produced by Rina Fraticelli. She received the Canadian Authors Association best novel and best short story awards, the American Gay Academic Literature Award, the U.S. Fund for Human Dignity Award of Merit, the CNIB's Talking Book of the Year Award and an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of British Columbia. In January of 2007, Rule was awarded the Alice B. Toklas Medal “for her long and storied career as a lesbian novelist.”

Proud Life - Jane Rule: 1931 - 2007 by Marilyn Schuster
Jane Rule 1996 - George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award

Reviews

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rule definitely has a distinct trademark style, which is evident even in Taking My Life. Her writing is dry, ironic, unemotional, and direct, yet understated. It is not the kind that you whip through; rather, it’s a languishing over, doubling back to catch the dry humour kind of prose. I find her style endlessly captivating while at the same time frustrating, like there are emotional truths and impact that Rule is just not giving me. After reading just the first paragraph of the memoir, I was taken aback, having forgotten what her writing was like:

Writing an autobiography may be a positive way of taking my own life. … I may be able to learn to value my life as something other than the hard and threateningly pointless journey it has often seemed. … No plan for a story or novel can rouse my imagination, which resolutely sleeps, feeding on the fat of summer. And so, I take my life, with moral and aesthetic misgivings, simply because there is nothing else to do.

Read the rest of my review here.

[Bett · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a Jane Rule aficionado, like me, have read all of her books, as I have, then you will revel in this memoir of her first twenty one years. If you agree with Katherine V. Forrest's assessment of Jane Rule as one of our most important writers of the twentieth century, this book is a delight and a necessity. It is everything one hopes a memoir to be: revealing, and in Rule's case, luminous, brilliantly written as any of her novels. Her last known work, with herself as the subject, Rule demonstrates why she should be considered one of the best writers of her century.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was delighted to discover this "lost" autobiography of Rule, but it left out as much as it included. What happened to her first, reluctant lover, the artist, Ann? The end of the autobiography seems to foreshadow something tragic, but we never learn if that's so. I had hoped to learn more about the genesis of her excellent second novel, "This Is Not for You," but this memoir leaves off with her 21st birthday. Still, a worthwhile read.

[Liza · Rating 5 out of 5]

omg gimme more! I wish this didn't end at 21 and covered her whole life, and also that every lesbian novelist would write an autobiography. I only read this bc it was available on the public library app to read on my phone, and I'm so glad I saw it.

[Sarah Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating autobiography. Rule clarifies her title by writing "...I have never been suicidal but often stalled...and so, I take my life, with moral and aesthetic misgivings, simply because there is nothing else to do." But we of course were previously unaware of the circumstances of her life, and she is both a compelling storyteller and a brilliant stylist. The autobiography carries her through young womanhood, into her first relationship in which she establishes a domestic partnership. She is coming out as a Lesbian in the late 40s and 50s, which was hard in some ways.
The book chronicles her extremely combative high school career and eventual success in a women's college, Mills College. She goes overseas to Great Britain, too, after the war, and it is there she lives with her lover. Her first (married) lover who neurotically insists she obtain initial heterosexual initiation develops untreatable suicidal depression so bad that her children are endangered. And since Rule is the children's Godmother this is particularly difficult for her. The depression reminds us how horrible severe mental health issues were before modern drugs were invented, and may, perhaps, have some bearing on Rule's title.
Rule's brother Arthur is a chronic deliquent, but she does also have a great deal of insight into the PTSD of the young soldiers coming home from the Second World War.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had NO idea what this book was. I just read it because the e-book I wanted wasn't at the library. I quite enjoyed reading this autobiography. I had no idea that this woman existed! It has encouraged me to read her other work. I'm wondering if I will see bits of this in her characters and plots. It was a pretty easy read. I liked the insight into the time as well. I'm not sure who I would recommend this to.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always too many names to keep track of.

[Erika Nerdypants · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very short but extremely interesting autobiography by Jane Rule. "Taking My Life" was written in the 80s, after Rule had officially retired from writing due to crippling arthritis. The book only deals with life events up to her 21st birthday, but it gave me wonderful insights into the life of a beloved author. She was born at a time when although social mores were rapidly changing, life for a young woman was still very much ruled by societal expectations of what was acceptable conduct. Rule realizing her attraction to and love for women struggled with coming to terms with this, but by her 21st birthday had successfully incorporated this aspect of her person. Surprisingly, she seems to have been polyamorous, at least in her youth, and without much fanfare. I wish that there had been more references to her writing, but mostly I wish that there had been more. I'm hoping to find a good biography on Jane Rule, so that I get to see where life takes her and how her story ends.

[Sheila Heuvel-Collins · Rating 2 out of 5]

While it was interesting to learn about the early part of Rule's life, there's a reason she didn't offer up the book for publishing while she was alive. A writer needs to *finish* writing the story before the publisher get to make money off it.