This is a novel populated by a wealth of fascinating and complexly written characters. Ruby has learned to navigate this reality and stand outside of it. It’s a community entrenched in its belief that those who wield power deserve to possess it. This is an environment so saturated with superstition it spills out into the real world. The abuse and horror that people can inflict can be so extreme that they are transformed in the story into an actual demon or “Dybou” skulking and feeding upon those who have been smothered. The same wheel that Ruby knew would crush her every time she rose up to fight.” The author has an extraordinary way of turning the grim realities of the world she portrays into battling supernatural powers. Bond writes that “Those men were a part of the wheel of the world and helped it turn.

She cannot accept any traditionally virtuous path. However, Ruby has been transformed by the anger and lust of men. He wants to care for and protect Ruby who is shunned by the rest of the community – especially his church-driven and self-righteous sister Celia. He journeys across the town to bring her a White Lay Angel Cake. But she eventually returns to the place of her birth to live a wretched existence on the fringes of the community where she can protectively foster the spirits of departed babies. Ruby also comes to embody all that’s wrong in her community – all the evil things which remain hidden from doe-eyed believers of purity.Īs a young woman Ruby escapes the suffocating confines and abuse of her small community in Texas to live under a different kind of oppression in New York City. She’s a fantastically realized character: an intelligent and strong individual.

In Cynthia Bond’s novel, Ruby is a girl who has never had any such illusions of the world’s purity having been shown at an early age the wrath and domineering power of men.

We slowly understand that our place in the world has to be earned or fought for and that our ancestors undoubtedly have blood on their hands. But, as we grow older, we learn the truth about current and past injustice. If we’re lucky enough to be raised in a relatively peaceful and happy household we might believe that we’re the innocent inheritors of a well-meaning world.

Ruby by Cynthia Bond