Drowning Ruth

A Novel

By: Christina Schwarz

Narrated by: Blair Brown

Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Deftly written and emotionally powerful, Drowning Ruth is a stunning portrait of the ties that bind sisters together and the forces that tear them apart, of the dangers of keeping secrets and the explosive repercussions when they are exposed. A mesmerizing and achingly beautiful debut.

Winter, 1919. Amanda Starkey spends her days nursing soldiers wounded in the Great War. Finding herself suddenly overwhelmed, she flees Milwaukee and retreats to her family's farm on Nagawaukee Lake, seeking comfort with her younger sister, Mathilda, and three-year-old niece, Ruth. But very soon, Amanda comes to see that her old home is no refuge—she has carried her troubles with her. On one terrible night almost a year later, Amanda loses nearly everything that is dearest to her when her sister mysteriously disappears and is later found drowned beneath the ice that covers the lake. When Mathilda's husband comes home from the war, wounded and troubled himself, he finds that Amanda has taken charge of Ruth and the farm, assuming her responsibility with a frightening intensity. Wry and guarded, Amanda tells the story of her family in careful doses, as anxious to hide from herself as from us the secrets of her own past and of that night.

Ruth, haunted by her own memory of that fateful night, grows up under the watchful eye of her prickly and possessive aunt and gradually becomes aware of the odd events of her childhood. As she tells her own story with increasing clarity, she reveals the mounting toll that her aunt's secrets exact from her family and everyone around her, until the heartrending truth is uncovered.

Guiding us through the lives of the Starkey women, Christina Schwarz's first novel shows her compassion and a unique understanding of the American landscape and the people who live on it.

©2000 Christina Schwarz
(P)2000 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A remarkable debut: surprising, unsettling and sure." --The New York Times Book Review

"A strong sense of portent and unusually vivid characters distinguish this mesmerizing first novel about horrifying family secrets and nearly annihilating guilt. Drowning Ruth is a complex and rewarding debut." --Anita Shreve, author of Fortune's Rocks and The Pilot's Wife

Great Oprah Book

This is one of the better Oprah book club picks. It's a great tale of a family with secrets.

Better than I thought it would be. A must listen.

There was a lot of things going on at first and it difficult to follow. But all of sudden, I could stop listening to the story. Blair Brown was an outstanding narrator. I will look for more of her work. She has a true fan now.

Wonderful

Sometimes a little difficult to follow quickly with sudden changes from first person to third person, but brilliantly read. The narrator is gifted and her tone and inflection leads you to feel love, hate, and disgust for the complex characters the author has created. Read it!

Great book, highly recommend.

Very intriguing with believable twists and turns.

slb

Any additional comments?

The story was good, the narrator miss-pronounced several of the names of the cities in Wisconsin, i.e. Waukesha, Nashotah.

Just Wow!

This story was beautifully written and kept me on edge with each chapter. There are points in the story that the main character reflect on a past event or introduce new characters but everything intertwined perfectly. The voice of the reader definitely made the story feel real and as if I was seeing everything happen! I’d recommend this to anyone and have recommended it to a few friends. I wish there was a movie based on the book!

Great Story

Certainly not the type of book I usually pick but really enjoyed it.

Worth reading

Great narration. Great story. Despite its subject matter, author resists being overly sentimental, mainly because her main character, Amanda, is brutally frank in her outlook. It is a bit of a woman's book, in topic and characters. Karl, the main male figure, is absent for much of the tale. The story is a page-turner. I had to fight the urge to skip to the end to find out what happens.

Great book

Very compelling story, with interesting plot twists. Wished for a different ending but like life, things don't always turn out exactly like you wish.

surprisingly good

though slow at times, the plot is intriguing and definitely worth sticking with. this debut novel is wonderfully written and the story is not at all predictable. repeated flashbacks make the narration hard to follow, though over time you will become used to the cues to help distinguish who is speaking and in what time period. my chief complaint is that i found the narrator's voice to be annoyingly shrill, especially voiced as "ruth."