In The Sound of Gravel, Ruth Wariner tells of growing up in a Mormon polygamist colony in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. Her childhood was filled with sad and shocking hardships, some painfully difficult to read. But Wariner's tone is never self-pitying, and her love for her mother and siblings imbues a distressing memoir with nuance, and eventual relief.
Ruth's mother, Kathy, became the fifth wife of Joel LeBaron when she was 17 years old. Ruth was Kathy's fourth child and Joel's 39th. LeBaron was soon after murdered by his brother over a conflict about church authority, and Kathy remarried to a man named Lane and bore another six children with him.
The Sound of Gravel details the poverty and poor living conditions that come with Kathy's choices, based on her religion, her devotion to and dependence on Lane, and a belief that the United States is a Babylon "standing between us and our connection to God." But the most heartbreaking aspect of Ruth's childhood is Lane's sexual abuse of her, which continues for years even as Ruth repeatedly reports him to her mother.
Despite her profound anger at Kathy's failure to protect her from Lane, Ruth understands that she is loved and deeply loves her mother in return. "I realized how little she had asked of the world, and how even that had been too much for the world to give." The Sound of Gravel's power lies in the facts of Ruth's story, which is deeply affecting both in its horrors and in its redemptive conclusion. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia