Ruby: Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2016
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By Cynthia Bond
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4 reviews
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS’ WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016***
‘LUMINOUS’ Guardian
‘STUNNING’ New York Times
‘EXCEPTIONAL’ Uzo Aduba (Orange Is The New Black)
Ephram Jennings has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. Young Ruby Bell, ""the kind of pretty it hurt to look at,"" has suffered beyond imagining, so as soon as she can, she flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York. Ruby quickly winds her way into the ripe center of the city-the darkened piano bars and hidden alleyways of the Village-all the while hoping for a glimpse of the red hair and green eyes of her mother. When a telegram from her cousin forces her to return home, thirty-year-old Ruby finds herself reliving the devastating violence of her girlhood. With the terrifying realization that she might not be strong enough to fight her way back out again, Ruby struggles to survive her memories of the town’s dark past. Meanwhile, Ephram must choose between loyalty to the sister who raised him and the chance for a life with the woman he has loved since he was a boy.
Full of life, exquisitely written, and suffused with the pastoral beauty of the rural South, Ruby is a transcendent novel of passion and courage. This wondrous page-turner rushes through the red dust and gossip of Main Street, to the pit fire where men swill bootleg outside Bloom’s Juke, to Celia Jennings’s kitchen, where a cake is being made, yolk by yolk, that Ephram will use to try to begin again with Ruby. Utterly transfixing, with unforgettable characters, riveting suspense, and breathtaking, luminous prose, Ruby offers an unflinching portrait of man’s dark acts and the promise of the redemptive power of love.
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A tough but moving read. Very evocative of the times and places it was set. I must admit some bits were hard to stomach, but as they said in the book (might be paraphrasing) 'if you can bear to live it, I can bear to listen'. Very caught up with the characters by the end.
"If you're brave enough to live it, the least I can do is listen." Ephram Jennings. We all agreed that Ruby is not any easy read and its subject matter is horrific. Cynthia does not shy away from her descriptions of rape, child trafficking and more which truly turns the reader's stomach. However this is perhaps one of the most beautifully written novels we have ever read. Amidst the horror, the reader will be uplifted by the power of unconditional and pure love. It also shows that we never truly know the horrors of someone's life and we all...
Read more...My bookgroup was fortunate enough to be chosen to shadow the 2016 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction books, and this was our chosen read. This is a dark and evocative book. It addresses issues such as child abuse, voodoo, life in small (minded?) communities, rape, incest, prostitution, black magic and ultimately the power of love over hate. It's certainly not a book for the faint of heart (one of our group gave up on the book due to the themes - but agreed to finish it after hearing the rest of the comments in our discussion). However, Bond's writing is superb...
Read more...This book crackles with Magic and Voodoo, telling Ruby’s story as she grows up in a black township in East Texas. It draws you into a small town world where everyone knows your business and is quick to make judgement of it. Where being from the right family assures you power and respect, but being weak and vulnerable can lead to the most horrific circumstances. This tale follows a young girl who escapes to New York and becomes someone else entirely before being called back home by haints and spirits. How the towns people respond to her reappearance says...
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