Desert of the Heart
Encyclopedia
Desert of the Heart is a 1964 lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

-themed novel written by Jane Rule
Jane Rule
Jane Vance Rule, CM, OBC was a Canadian writer of lesbian-themed novels and non-fiction.-Biography:Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, Jane Vance Rule was the oldest daughter of Carlotta Jane and Arthur Richards Rule. She claimed she was a tomboy growing up and felt like an outsider for reaching six...

. The story was adapted loosely into the 1985 film Desert Hearts
Desert Hearts
Desert Hearts is a 1985 lesbian-themed romantic drama film loosely based on the Jane Rule novel Desert of the Heart. Directed by Donna Deitch, the film stars Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau with a supporting performance by Audra Lindley....

, directed by Donna Deitch
Donna Deitch
Donna Deitch is an American film and television director best known for her 1986 film Desert Hearts. The film was groundbreaking as one of the first releases to depict a lesbian love story in a generally mainstream, albeit art house, vein but with positive and respectful themes...

. The book was originally published in hardback by Macmillan Canada. It was one of the very few novels that addressed lesbianism that was published in hardback form; most books during this period with female homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

 as a topic were considered lesbian pulp fiction
Lesbian pulp fiction
Lesbian pulp fiction refers to any mid-20th century paperback novel with overtly lesbian themes and content. Lesbian pulp fiction was published in the 1950s and 60s by many of the same paperback publishing houses that other genres of fiction including Westerns, Romances, and Detective Fiction...

 until 1969.

At the time the novel was published, Rule was a lecturer at the University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...

 in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, and because the novel dealt with lesbianism, her job was threatened.

Desert of the Heart was first republished in paperback form by Talonbooks
Talonbooks
Talonbooks is an independent publisher of Canadian literature, whose repertoire features authors writing in the literary genres of poetry, fiction and drama, as well as non-fiction books in the fields of ethnography, environmental and social issues, cultural studies, and literary criticism.The...

 in 1977.

Background

Rule's family lived in Reno, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...

, where the book is set, and although she was not a resident, she visited them. One summer, Rule worked in a casino to research for the book and was impressive in her competence. Rule completed the book in 1961 and spent three years trying to find a publisher for it, eventually sending it to about 25 American publishers. Rule remembered that one publisher told her, "If this book isn't pornographic, what's the point of printing it ... if you can write in the dirty parts we'll take it but otherwise no..."

Plot summary

Evelyn Hall is an English professor from the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

. She arrives in Reno
Reno
Reno is the fourth most populous city in Nevada, US.Reno may also refer to:-Places:Italy*The Reno River, in Northern ItalyCanada*Reno No...

 to establish a six-week residency to attain a divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...

. After being married for 15 years, she is overwhelmed with guilt for feeling as if she is ruining her husband's mental health. While in Reno, she stays in the guest home of Frances Packer with other women who are also awaiting their divorces. Frances also lives with Walter, her 18-year-old son and her late lover's 25-year-old daughter, Ann Childs. Evelyn and Ann are startled at how alike they are in appearance, despite their 15-year age difference.

Ann works as a change operator at a local casino
Casino
In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...

 and a relatively successful cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

. Ann is revealed to reject significant relationships in her life and although is romantic with both men and women, refuses to become attached to anyone. She is ending a relationship with her boss named Bill, that was significant enough to make her friends believe they were to be married. Ann's best friend is Silver who works with her at the casino as a dealer, and is also a sometime lover.

Evelyn and Ann begin a friendship that evolves into a romantic relationship in which Evelyn must deal with her guilt after being asked by her husband's doctor to divorce him for his own good. Despite the symptoms of his deep and chronic depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...

, Evelyn takes the responsibility for the failure of the marriage and his depression upon herself, but after divulging how caustic she is to Ann, she is relieved to realize that the responsibility is not hers to take. And Ann must deal with committing to a relationship wholeheartedly. Being employed by the casino, she is rather well-paid, but is stifled within the atmosphere there, though she continues to work despite her abilities.

Ann is fired from the casino after a slot machine is stolen on her shift when she is distracted by Evelyn being at the casino. Her previous split with Bill is not amicable, despite Bill beginning to date another of his employees. There is some suspicion that Bill is spying on Ann and Evelyn, and he threatens to contact Evelyn's husband's lawyer to notify him of Ann and Evelyn's lesbian relationship, but the divorce is finalized without his interference. Immediately after the final hearing, Evelyn and Ann decide to live together "for a while."

Origin of the title

The story is set in Reno, Nevada, around which spreads an expanse of desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...

 that initially strikes fear into Evelyn upon her arrival and has been a comfort to Ann during her existence there. It is used to describe Evelyn's lack of knowledge of what real love is, when she tells Ann that she lives, "in the desert of the heart." After she falls in love with Ann, the desert surrounding Reno ceases to terrify her. Simultaneously, the desert also ceases to comfort Ann as a place to run to be alone.

Along with the climate desert as a symbol, the setting of the casino in which Ann works and Evelyn visits is also considered a desert of morality
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...

. Ann is witness to what the addiction
Behavioral addiction
Behavioral addiction is a form of addiction which does not rely on drugs or alcohol. Increasingly referred to as process addiction or non-substance-related addiction ) behavioral addiction includes a compulsion to repeatedly engage in an action until said action causes serious negative consequences...

 of gambling does to people of all walks of life, including the employees. Being fired from the casino frees Ann from her refusals to care about what happens to the gambling addicts, dealers, other change aprons, and the casino management, and allows her to commit to a more refined life with Evelyn.

The title is taken from a poem by W.H. Auden, his elegy for Yeats. "In the desert of the heart, Let the healing fountain start." Evelyn is a professor of English literature, and she quotes from some of Yeats' poems.

Reception

Rule's first novel received warm praise from literary critics who described it as, "an intelligent novel, not afraid of ideas, and not committed to them overdiagrammatically." Rule's prose did not sensationalize the relationship between Evelyn and Ann, choosing a detached method of writing one reviewer noted, "Miss Rule is so arbitrary in her depiction of the major characters' psyche-searching and so sketchy in her description of minor figures that the reader is apt to have little empathy with anyone." One reviewer cautioned potential readers that despite the lack of sensationalism, "The Desert of the Heart is not recommended to those who find sexual perversion an uncomfortable subject."

Desert of the Heart was highly recommended by Gene Damon
Barbara Grier
Barbara Grier was an American writer and publisher most widely known for co-founding Naiad Press and writing and editing The Ladder under the pseudonym Gene Damon.-Early life:...

 in The Ladder
The Ladder (magazine)
The Ladder was the first nationally distributed lesbian publication in the United States. It was published monthly from 1956 to 1970, and once every other month in 1971 and 1972. It was the primary publication and method of communication for the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian organization...

, who called it "a symbolic delight."

Rule remembered the mail she got from women who read the book. "I got a huge amount of fan mail which I didn't expect. I thought movie stars got fan mail. People were writing things like you are the only person in the world who could possibly understand who I am, how I feel, if I'm not able to talk to someone I'm going to kill myself...it just felt to me overwhelming and depressing that there was so much fear and so much self-hatred and so much loneliness."

It tied for 10th place on a list of top ten gay novels by Bibliofemme, an Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

book club.

Editions

  • 1964 - Toronto: Macmillan Canada
  • 1964 - London: Secker and Warburg
  • 1965 - Cleveland: World
  • 1975 - New York: Arno
  • 1977 - Vancouver: Talonbooks
  • 1985 - Tallahassee, FL: Naiad
  • 1991 - Vancouver: Talonbooks
  • 1995 - London: Silver Moon
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