Rita Will: Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser

Before Rubyfruit Jungle stormed the book world in 1973, the term "bestselling lesbian novelist" was an oxymoron. But Rita Mae Brown's first novel was so honest and funny that it broke all barriers. The 52-year-old author's memoirs have the same sassy panache as her fiction. Generous and loving toward her eccentric family and most of those with whom she's been intimate, Brown pulls no punches when depicting those she considers hypocrites or cowards. Billie Jean King will hate this book; Martina Navratilova won't like it either. Almost everyone else will find it a delight.