Ruth: A Novel

ISBN: 0593715942

Author: Riley, Kate

Condition: New

Named a Wall Street Journal Top 10 Book of 2025Named a Washington Post Top 10 Fiction Book of 2025Named a Best Book of the Year by Vulture, Marie Claire and Vanity Fair"I loved RUTH."-LordeIt would never work out, but Im in love with Ruth.-Ron Charles, The Washington PostA wonderful, loving, tenderly teasing and often moving portrait [a] standout.-Sam Sacks, Wall Street JournalThere are inklings of greatness in Kate Rileys first novel I suspect it will become an underground classic.-Dwight Garner, The New York TimesIn this mesmerizing and profound novel, the arc of a woman's life in a devout, insular community challenges our deepest assumptions about what infuses life with meaning.Ruth is raised in a snow globe of Christian communism, a world without private property, television, or tolerance for idle questions. Every morning she braids her hair and wears the same costume, sings the same breakfast song in a family room identical to every other family room in the community; every one of these moments is meant to be a prayer, but to Ruth they remain puzzles. Her life is seen in glimpses through childhood, marriage, and motherhood, as she tries to manage her own perilous curiosity in a community built on holy mystery. Is she happy? Might this in fact be happiness? Ruth immerses us in an experience that challenges our most fervent beliefs.