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Amazon.co.uk Review
As the title confirms though, it's the death of Rebecca and Adam's child, Ruby, in a road accident that dominates. In the depiction of this horrific incident, Dunmore at one point breaks into verse, crystallising in just a few sparse, stream of consciousness lines Rebecca's agony as, impotently, she watches the tragedy unfold: "She always stops at roads, she's never run into a road, but look how fast she's going Adam, she's too far ahead, the gap between them, stop Ruby, stop Ruby, stop Rubystop."
Rebecca's loss is even greater because she is herself a lost child, a foundling who was abandoned in a shoebox outside an Italian restaurant. But, if this is a book about the many permutations of loss, it is equally about creativity, artistic as well as biological. Through Rebecca's encounters with her boss, Mr Damiano, the former circus impresario turned hotelier, and Joe's "story", Dunmore salutes, through the very medium of fiction itself, the healing power of the imagination. --Travis Elborough --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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She dodged into the yard with me in her arms, tucked up in a shoebox. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Breathtaking ....,
By JMcG (Kent , United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Mourning Ruby (Hardcover)
The structure of this wonderful book is complex, but Dunmore's poetic prose flows so gracefully across the pages, that it quite simply takes you by the hand and leads you gently but surely through its rich layers of stories within stories within stories without putting a step wrong.The main story is about a mother (herself an abandoned child) and father trying to deal with the death of their young daughter. The awful moment when Ruby races from one parent to another into the path of an oncoming car is heartstopping in its shocking finality. It reminded me of the equally shocking moment in Ian McKewn's 'A Child In Time', when a father, out shopping, suddenly realises that his child has disappeared. In both cases the reader is overwhelmed by the absence of this small person whose energy spilled onto the page only a moment ago, but now is gone. As that absence fills their lives, so it spreads its influence across the whole book and its cast of characters both 'real' and fictional - and while the layering of stories means that there are a large number of characters (and voices) in this book, I felt that I knew and cared for even the most minor of them. Mourning Ruby is beautifully crafted and takes the reader on an emotional and searching journey. Although it is laced with grief it is also about hopes and dreams. This book is not, in the end, about death, its about the joy and pain of living.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Startlingly beautiful,
By
This review is from: Mourning Ruby (Hardcover)
Helen Dunmore never fails to amaze with her unique skill of creating poetry out of prose - "Mourning Ruby" is one of the best books I have read all year, and there have been many! There are several stories running through one main tale: that of a mother and father mourning their dead child. But theirs is not the only tale of loss and grief. Dunmore manages to make even the most minor of characters live and breathe, and the ending, surprisingly, is uplifting and positive; something you don't expect throughout the book. Read it once for the enjoyment of the story, then go back again and revel in the words, strung together like gems on a necklace.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not Her Best,
By A Customer
This review is from: Mourning Ruby (Paperback)
Sometimes I love Helen Dunmore, especially Burning Bright, but I must say this isn't one of those times. Parts of it are wonderful, especially those concerning her boss Mr. Damiano. But the character of her friend Joe drags it down. He never becomes more than an artistic convention and the "book within a book," his novella, was, well, cringemakingly awful. If it had been at the beginning rather than the end of the book, I doubt if I'd have read the entire book.
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