Ruby
Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2016
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- 25,00 kr
Publisher Description
***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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
When Oprah Winfrey announced that she’d selected Ruby for her Oprah 2.0 Book Club, the media maven was rendered virtually speechless by her admiration for the book. We agree with Oprah’s assessment of the novel as “profound” and “gorgeous” and zipped through it as quickly as we could. We follow the story of Ruby Dell: the daughter of one of a trio of doomed, beautiful sisters from a dusty, all-black Texas town. Ruby herself has gone through soul-shattering experiences and returns to her hometown broken and unhinged, avoided by everyone but Ephram Jennings, an ally from her past. First-time author Cynthia Bond makes music out of words, ensuring that the horrifying episodes of racism and violence she writes about penetrate our hearts—and that the moments of beauty and grace touch us just as deeply.
