The Book of Ruth: A Novel

(Paperback)

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Description

Winner of the 1989 PEN/Hemingway Foundation Awardfor best first novel, this exquisite bookconfronts real-life issues of alienation and violencefrom which the author creates a stunning testamentto the human capacity for mercy, compassion andlove.

Reviews

An American beauty this book. The narrator of Jane Hamiltons sensational first novel is a holy lusty innocent. Vogue

A sly and wistful, if harrowing, human comedy. Hamilton is a new and original voice in fiction and one well worth listening to. Boston Sunday Globe

Ms. Hamilton gives Ruth a humble dignity and allows her hopebut its not a heavenly hope. Its a common one, caked with mud and held with gritted teeth. And its probably the only kind thats worth reading about. The New York Times Book Review

Hamiltons story builds to a shocking crescendo. Her small-town characters are a appealingly offbeat and brushed with grace as any found in Alice Hoffmans or Anne Tylers novels. Glamour

Jane Hamiltons novel is authentically Dickensian. The real achievement of this first novel is not so much the blackness as the suggestion of resilience. At the end, Ruth begins to put together her shattered body, spirit and life. Her words are awkward, as they have been all along, but suddenly and unexpectedly they shine. Los Angeles Times

A disturbing and beautiful book. Hilma Wolitzer

An extraordinary story of a familys disintegration. Will be compared to Jane Smileys A Thousand Acres. Astonishingly vivid and moving. People

An enthralling tale of guilt, betrayal, and the terrifying ways of our lives. Entertainment Weekly

Unforgettably, beat by beat, Hamilton maps the best and worst of the human heart and all the mysterious, uncharted country in between. Kirkus Reviews

Author Bio

Jane Hamilton is the author ofThe Book of Ruth, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for First Fiction;A Map of the World, aNew York TimesNotable Book of the Year and named one of the top ten books of the year byEntertainment Weekly,Publishers Weekly, theMiami Herald, andPeoplemagazine;Disobedience; andThe Short History of a Prince. She lives in Rochester, Wisconsin.