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Ellen Isaacs | |
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The Book of Ruth is about a young woman growing up in a small town in the midwest with her dominating, controlling mother, May, and her genius brother Matt, whom May dotes upon. May has always treated Ruth as a slightly retarded girl who has brought her nothing but disappointment, especially compared to Matt. The book describes the difficult path Ruth takes to grow out of this definition of herself. Through her development, the one person who truly believes in her is her Aunt Sid, with whom she corresponds with through letters from childhood through adulthood. The story starts when Ruth is about 10, goes back into her past through flashbacks, and progresses until she gets married and has a child. At each stage, Ruth is sensitive to the cues she gets about whom she should be from authority figures (the Reverend, her mother, Aunt Sid, a social worker), but she also shows a good amount of skepticism as she struggles to match her own thinking to those expectations. As a child, she grudgingly plays the role of the dumb student even if she only half believes it herself, while she genuinely seems to accept the role of wife and mother and changes to match her perception of those roles. All through the book, Ruth foreshadows a tragic ending, which still comes as a bit of a shock, but her again her reaction and adaptation continues to be illuminating. This is my second Jane Hamilton book (and her first one published). Once again, I'm surprised by how much I became engaged in the story of people I didn't necessarily like and might not otherwise want to read about. Hamilton has a real talent for drawing out the intricacies and humanity of her characters. I especially appreciate how she gives rich motivation for all her characters, so you can't just hate "the bad guys" and root for "the good ones," but instead you understand everyone as struggling with their own weaknesses and strengths, unhealthy dependencies and noble aspirations. I liked how Ruth often talked about people's "good points," as something you have to look for in people and may not always see. This could be seen as a book about a down-and-out family, but instead I saw it as a rich description of a small family in a rural town and the difficulty we all have in finding our way.
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