Cynthia Bond's debut novel, Ruby, manages fully to explore memory, racism, community and the resilience of the human spirit--no small task--by creating a sort of dream in which human kindness and cruelty are shown as they are: inextricable.
The once beautiful and literally haunted Ruby Bell, who fled her Texas town and her own demons in the 1950s, returned some years later, though her tenuous grasp on sanity slipped away soon after. She became the locus for all the town's fear and shame. For all, that is, but Ephram Jennings.
Ephram remembers her as the girl he has never stopped loving, and asks his sister to make one of her legendary "white lay angel" cakes--light, sweet, precious, coveted. Dressed in his Sunday best, he tries to carry it through the woods to Ruby's house, a place of nightmare and squalor. It is a hero's journey, fraught with danger and trial. Cake in hand, Ephram falls and tears his clothes, fends off questions from passersby, encounters racism and harassment from the law and forces himself to lie about his destination. With each obstacle, we learn a little more about the history of the town, of Ruby, and of Ephram's connection to her.
Much of Ruby involves situations and events that are dark and difficult but within and around these are also the powers of love and kindness. Cynthia Bond renders all of it with exceptional grace and insight. This is an unusual, rare and beautiful novel that is meant to be experienced as much as read. --Debra Ginsberg, author