![]() ![]() You might be thinking that this is therefore going to be some great love story set against the odds. He too is seen somewhat as an outsider yet to a much lesser extent thanks to being somewhat shrouded by his sister Celia, who has followed in their Reverend father’s footsteps becoming quite the feared God fearing woman, who does not approve of Ruby at all. Whilst most of the town laugh and jeer at her one man, Ephram Jennings, sees Ruby with different eyes and we soon learn he has been smitten with her since childhood. ![]() ![]() She has become ostracized and of course as readers we want to know why. So much the outsider that she now lives in a ramshackle dwelling deep in the nearby woods. Her eyes the ink of sky, just before the storm.įrom the opening of Ruby Cynthia Bond instantly submerges us into Liberty Township where Ruby Bell is very much the outsider in her own hometown. Her acres of kegs carrying her, arms swaying like a loose screen. Blackened nails as if she had scratched the slate of night. She wore gray like rain clouds and wandered the red roads in bared feet. The fact that she had come back from New York City made this somewhat understandable to the town. ![]() The people of Liberty Township wove her cautionary tales of the wages of sin and travel. Ruby Bell was a constant reminder of what could befall a woman whose shoe heels were too high. Two Roads Books, 2015, paperback, fiction, 368 pages, kindly sent by the publisher and by the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction ![]()
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