- Paperback: 165 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Books; 1st Vintage Contemporaries Ed edition (May 1990)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0679728449
- ISBN-13: 978-0679728443
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13.2 x 1.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,958,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
Full of fantastically gritty metaphors, and with strains of class and race stretching like a fragile elastic band... a book that will change your dreams if not your life. (OBSERVER )
An exquisitely realised piece of writing. (Elizabeth Buchan, MAIL ON SUNDAY ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
An exquisitely realised piece of writing. (Elizabeth Buchan, MAIL ON SUNDAY ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
The story of a relationship between a carefully raised daughter of Carolina gentry and a skinny tenant farmer who had never owned anything in his life.
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First Sentence
She hasn't been dead four months and I've already eaten to the bottom of the deep freeze. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
She hasn't been dead four months and I've already eaten to the bottom of the deep freeze. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This short, spare book concerns the unlikely marriage between Ruby Pitt and tenant farmer "Blinking" Jack Stokes, old enough to be her father and physically unprepossessing. The title is from the famous Old Testament passage about the price of a virtuous woman being "far above rubies": hence Ruby Pitt. Except for the last chapter, the novel is made up of alternating first-person narratives from Jack Stokes (after Ruby's death at only forty-five from lung cancer) and from Ruby herself, in the months before her death.
Both characters are beautifully drawn. Ruby is the youngest child of well-off, adoring parents who are still cutting up the meat on her plate for her when she is old enough to have a family of her own. She makes her escape by elopement with John Woodrow, a violent low-life who leaves her high and dry when he is fatally stabbed in a bar-room scuffle. When Jack Stokes comes to her rescue, she sees in him what no-one else has seen: a kind and capable man who will allow her space to be herself.
Jack Stokes is given a wonderfully earthy voice: the action takes place in the southern U.S.A., and he combines gritty country sayings with a disarming honesty. He is a man who never had much in life before Ruby; and after her death, he is again left empty-handed.
Ultimately, then, this is a fairly bleak little book. All the same, it would be worth the admission price for Jack Stokes' country sayings alone; and I'd certainly be interested in reading more of Gibbons' work.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The book is written from the point of view of Jack and Ruby, each taking a turn in narrating a chapter.
The language is typical of Kaye Gibbons, as are the strong characterisations of the protagonists.
Ultimately, it is the story of two people who, despite their differences, have a fantastic marriage and a very strong bond.
The ending is very emotional, as are the majority of the events within the novel.
4 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The book is written from the point of view of Jack and Ruby, each taking a turn in narrating a chapter.
The language is typical of Kaye Gibbons, as are the strong characterisations of the protagonists.
Ultimately, it is the story of two people who, despite their differences, have a fantastic marriage and a very strong bond.
The ending is very emotional, as are the majority of the events within the novel.
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