Drowning Ruth (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Oprah Book Club® Selection, September 2000: For 19th-century novelists--from Jane Austen to George Eliot, Flaubert to Henry James--social constraint gave a delicious tension to their plots. Yet now our relaxed morals and social mobility have rendered many of the classics untenable. Why shouldn't Maisie know what she knows? It will all come out in family therapy anyway. The vogue for historical novels depends in part on our pleasure in reentering a world of subtle cues and repressed emotion, a time in which a young woman could destroy her life by saying yes to the wrong man. After all, there was no reliable birth control, no divorce, no chance of an independent life or a scandal-free separation.

Christina Schwarz's suspenseful debut pivots on two of the lost "virtues" of the past: silence and stoicism. Drowning Ruth opens in 1919, on the heels of the influenza epidemic that followed the First World War. Although there were telephones and motor cars and dance halls in the small towns of Wisconsin in those years, the townspeople remained rigid and forbidding. As a young woman, Amanda Starkey, a Lutheran farmer's daughter, had been firmly discouraged from an inappropriate marriage with a neighboring Catholic boy. A few years later, as a nurse in Milwaukee, she is seduced by a dishonorable man. Her shame sends her into a nervous breakdown, and she returns to the family farm. Within a year, though, her beloved sister Mathilde drowns under mysterious circumstances. And when Mathilde's husband, Carl, returns from the war, he finds his small daughter, Ruth, in Amanda's tenacious grip, and she will tell him nothing about the night his wife drowned. Amanda's parents, too, are long gone. "I killed my parents. Had I mentioned that?" muses Amanda.

I killed them because I felt a little fatigued and suffered from a slight, persistent cough. Thinking I was overworked and hadn't been getting enough sleep, I went home for a short visit, just a few days to relax in the country while the sweet corn and the raspberries were ripe. From the city I brought fancy ribbon, two boxes of Ambrosia chocolate, and a deadly gift... I gave the influenza to my mother, who gave it to my father, or maybe it was the other way around.

Schwarz is a skillful writer, weaving her grim tale across several decades, always returning to the fateful night of Mathilde's death. Drowning Ruth displays her gift for pacing and her harsh insistence on the right ending, rather than the cheery one. --Regina Marler

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 -- Review

Drowning Ruth is a remarkable debut: surprising, unsettling and sure. -- The New York Times Book Review, Maile Meloy

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition/Book Oprahs Club edition (September 27, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385502532
• ISBN-13: 978-0385502535
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (347 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #640,977 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

100 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An engrossing psychological thriller!, August 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Drowning Ruth (Hardcover)

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel -- from its memorable, engaging first sentence ("Ruth remembered drowning." How could *that* be?) to its quietly poignant final scene. The plot centers on a mystery of family secrets surrounding Ruth's murky memory. Along the way to its resolution, the author develops a psychologically sophisticated portrait of a family living in rural Wisconsin during World War I. Time, place and the personalities of some wonderful, idiosyncratic characters are presented in rich detail. This book reminded me of two personal favorites of recent years. Like *Snow Falling on Cedars*, it is densely atmospheric. The lay of the land and the vagaries of the weather become important elements in the story; the effect is to transport the reader into a vividly imagined world. Like *Anywhere But Here*, this book is eloquent in its portrayal of intensely ambivalent relationships among women: between sisters; between mothers and daughters. Drowning Ruth should appeal to fans of many genres: family drama; historical novel; mystery and psychological thriller, to name a few. I recommend it most highly!

88 of 91 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Now featured on my personal Top Ten list . . ., August 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Drowning Ruth (Hardcover)

I rarely send in reviews of books, but "Drowning Ruth" moved me to add my voice to the crowd. This is by far the most interesting and engrossing novel i have read in a very long time. I love it when I find myself sinking into the story, into the characters, and that is exactly the feeling I got when reading this novel. The writing is so good that it carried me away, to another place altogether, to a cold Wisconsin lake in the winter. Christina Schwarz paints such a compelling picture of the sisters' relationship that I felt almost a part of the scene. In fact, all of her characters are so vivid that i feel as though I would recognize them walking down the street. And the story itself is a page-turner. Anyway, BUY IT!! READ IT!!

68 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An odd Oprah pick, but I liked it!, October 23, 2000

By	K. Melissa Galyon "melreads" (Rockwall, Texas) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Drowning Ruth is not your typical Oprah Book Club pick. There is triumph and growth by the characters, but this book has a twist. Amanda and Mathilda (Mattie) are sisters living very different lives. Mattie's husband, Carl, has gone off to fight during World War I, and Mattie is left to take care of her parents and her daughter, Ruth. Amanda is working as a nurse in a nearby state. After this seemingly harmless introduction, things get interesting. Amanda comes home to live with Mattie and Ruth after their parents have both died. Almost a year later, Mattie mysteriously disappears and is found days later, having drowned in the lake near their home. And Amanda takes Mattie's place, raising Ruth and take care of Mattie's husband. As you get closer to Amanda, you'll see that things are not always what they seem, and that the first superficial glance at a family is just an illusion. I highly recommend this novel both to Oprah book readers and mystery fans.