Midwestern-born novelist Jane Hamilton wrote her debut novel, The Book of Ruth, in 1988. It won the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award for best first novel the following year. Set in small-town Illinois in the 1970s, this beautiful and sensitive book grapples with common familial issues including coming of age, detachment, intimacy, and violence within the family. Although suggestive of real events, the work and characters therein are purely fictional. First published in 1988 by Ticknor & Fields (now Houghton Mifflin Company), The Book of Ruth was reprinted in 1989 by Anchor Books. The former edition is the basis for this study guide. The guide reproduces the author’s use of outdated terminology in quotes.

Plot Summary

The provincial protagonist Ruth Grey narrates the events of her life beginning with her earliest childhood memories. She and her family live in the small town of Honey Creek, Illinois. This family includes a domineering mother, May, her exceptionally intelligent brother, Matt, and her absentee father, Elmer. Though Ruth is overall well-meaning, she occasionally takes her anger out on her brother in the form of physical violence, a habit which abates when she reaches high school. Always in the shadow of her brother and at the mercy of her jaded and dictatorial mother, Ruth falls for Ruby Dahl, an out-of-work man with alcoholism. The trajectory of their relationship forms the basis for the novel.

Ruth delivers her mother’s story, told second-hand through letters from Ruth’s Aunt Sid, a mainstay of her childhood and positive mentor who lives 40 miles away in DeKalb. The oldest of eight children, May was in charge of household work at a young age, and many of her siblings did not reach adulthood. May is smitten by, and soon married to, a good-looking man named Willard Jenson, who is drafted and dies fighting during WWII. About 10 years later, May remarries to a comparatively unattractive and unaccomplished farmer named Elmer Grey, with whom she has two children, Ruth and Matt. Elmer leaves the family when Ruth is only 10 years old to pick grapefruits in Texas.

Though Ruth is placed in remedial academic classes, she uses time allotted for writing to pen pals to correspond with her Aunt Sid (despite the fact that May has always had a poor relationship with her younger sister). Ruth enjoys mixing real-life stories with more sanguine fabrications of her imagination in her correspondence with Aunt Sid, while Aunt Sid’s perspective provides an enormously positive influence for Ruth.

Ruth works for a blind and arthritic elderly woman named Miss Finch. Ruth is instructed to play books on tape for her mistress, and she eventually comes to enjoy the freedom and privacy of Miss Finch’s company, as well as the contents of Miss Finch’s classical literary works. Soon, Ruth begins seeing the world through the lens of literature, imagining those in her own life as literary characters. Miss Finch must go into a nursing home around the time of Ruth’s graduation, leaving Ruth to work full time at a local dry cleaners, the Trim ‘N Tidy, while her brother goes to college at MIT.

As adults, May and Ruth develop parallel friendships with mother and daughter pair, Dee Dee and Daisy Foote, respectively. Daisy wears heavy makeup and has a reputation for being promiscuous. Daisy introduces Ruth to Ruby Dahl, who is one of the first men to take an interest in Ruth. Ruby forces himself on Ruth during their first date. Though Ruth is shocked and upset by this experience, she ultimately falls for him. Ruby proposes to Ruth within just a few months. The newlyweds continue to live with May, despite May’s obvious disapproval of the marriage. Ruth constantly has to stave off arguments between Ruby and May.

The tension in the household briefly abates when Ruth gives birth to a boy, Justin, whom she calls “Justy.” Ruth relishes her time at home with Justy, but once she returns to work, though she and May both work part-time, the tensions mount once again. The overbearing May does not allow Ruby to engage with Justy.

Ruby’s social worker suggests that Ruby and Ruth rent an inexpensive apartment in a neighboring suburb. Meanwhile, Ruth learns that she is pregnant again. At Ruth’s suggestion, the couple agrees not to move out until after Christmas so that they can help May decorate for the holidays. They argue, but Ruth's mind is made up, and May backs down.

After church one Sunday in December, Justy asks for sweets from the basement, where May keeps cookies that she donates to the church at Christmas. May refuses, and in so doing, insults Ruby for being too permissive with his son and for having rotten teeth by virtue of having eaten too many cookies himself. Offended and livid, Ruby sends Justy to get a cookie despite May’s prohibition.

This flagrant act of disobedience angers May to the extent that she charges at Ruby, who in turn becomes angry and begins to beat both Ruth and May with a poker from the fireplace. Ruth escapes to the porch but returns for the sake of Justy, whom she finds watching from the stairwell as Ruby beats May to death.

After Ruby kills May, he follows Ruth outside and continues to beat her until Justy screams, reminding Ruby that Ruth is carrying a child. Ruby retreats inside, and Ruth calls the police from a neighbor’s home. Ruth spends the next month in a hospital in Chicago near her Aunt Sid, and her son stays with neighbors, since Ruby is in jail facing trial. In the hospital, Ruth learns that her pregnancy is still viable. She and Justy live with Aunt Sid after she is discharged from the hospital.

As she recovers, Ruth comes to understand that Ruby is sick, and that she should not see him again. She contemplates attending college, at Aunt Sid’s suggestion. Though she is severely traumatized, she faces her future with courage, admitting to feeling liberated from May’s insults and commandments.

The Book of Ruth is a touching and heart-rending story of the title character’s attempt to make sense of her tragedy-stricken life, as well as her courage to pick up the pieces and become the person and mother she knows she can be. The novel demonstrates the ramifications of toxic familial relationships as well as the consequences of wanting to be loved at any cost. The book was made into a TV-movie in 2004, directed by Bill Eagles.