Annotation
Winner of the 1989 PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award for best first novel, this exquisite book confronts real-life issues of alienation and violence from which the author creates a stunning testament to the human capacity for mercy, compassion and love.
Awards
1989 Ernest Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
Author Notes
Jane Hamilton lives, works, and writes in an orchard farmhouse in Wisconsin. Her short stories have appeared in Harper's magazine. For The Book of Ruth she received the 1989 PEN/Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award for best first novel.
Characters
| Name | Grey, Ruth |
| Gender | Female |
| Traits | Married |
| Mother | |
| Abused | |
| Uneducated | |
| Genre | Domestic Coming of age Fiction |
| Topics | Family relationships Social outcasts Domestic abuse Dysfunctional families Alienation Self-discovery Mothers and daughters |
| Setting | Honey Creek, Illinois Illinois-Wisconsin border Small town |