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“POWERFUL . . . SUSPENSEFUL . . . RICHLY TEXTURED . . . [A] CHILLING, PRECOCIOUSLY GOOD START TO A BRIGHT NEW NOVELIST’S CAREER.”
–The New York Times
“[A] gripping psychological thriller . . . In the winter of 1919, a young mother named Mathilda Neumann drowns beneath the ice of a rural Wisconsin lake. The shock of her death dramatically changes the lives of her daughter, troubled sister, and husband. . . . Told in the voices of several of the main characters and skipping back and forth in time, the narrative gradually and tantalizingly reveals the dark family secrets and the unsettling discoveries that lead to the truth of what actually happened the night of the drowning. . . . Schwarz certainly succeeds at keeping the reader engrossed.”
–FRANCINE PROSE
Us Weekly
“DEFT AND ASSURED . . . [WITH] STRONG CHARACTERS AND A PLOT LONG ON TENSION AND SURPRISES.”
–Time
“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 The Pilot’s Wife
“RIVETING . . . A VERY SUSPENSEFUL TALE, ONE THAT WILL KEEP READERS UP SHIVERING IN THE NIGHT.”
–USA Today
- Sales Rank: #58604 in Books
- Brand: Schwarz, Christina
- Published on: 2001-07-31
- Released on: 2001-07-31
- Format: Print
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.19" h x .79" w x 5.50" l,
- Binding: Paperback
- 368 pages
Features
- Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz
- #1 New York Times Bestseller
- A Novel read by Oprah's Book Club
- First Ballantine Books Edition, August 2001, Published by The Random House Publishing Group
- ISBN-10: 0345439104, ISBN-13: 9780345439109
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
“Gripping . . . A story of deep family rivalries . . . A remarkable debut.”
–The New York Times Book Review
“COMPELLING . . .The immediately impressive thing about Drowning Ruth is not the author’s talent, though that is apparent within the first few pages, but the ambitious narrative scheme she’s devised to tell her tale.”
–San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle
“Schwarz pays meticulous attention to her characters. . . . Drowning Ruth offers tender gifts–the shore, the lake, the island, all keeping their own mysteries.”
–The Washington Post Book World
From the Inside Flap
"POWERFUL . . . SUSPENSEFUL . . . RICHLY TEXTURED . . . [A] CHILLING, PRECOCIOUSLY GOOD START TO A BRIGHT NEW NOVELIST'S CAREER."
"-The New York Times
"[A] gripping psychological thriller . . . In the winter of 1919, a young mother named Mathilda Neumann drowns beneath the ice of a rural Wisconsin lake. The shock of her death dramatically changes the lives of her daughter, troubled sister, and husband. . . . Told in the voices of several of the main characters and skipping back and forth in time, the narrative gradually and tantalizingly reveals the dark family secrets and the unsettling discoveries that lead to the truth of what actually happened the night of the drowning. . . . Schwarz certainly succeeds at keeping the reader engrossed."
-FRANCINE PROSE
" Us Weekly
"DEFT AND ASSURED . . . [WITH] STRONG CHARACTERS AND A PLOT LONG ON TENSION AND SURPRISES."
-"Time
"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 "The Pilot's Wife
"RIVETING . . . A VERY SUSPENSEFUL TALE, ONE THAT WILL KEEP READERS UP SHIVERING IN THE NIGHT."
"-USA Today
Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Shame and Secrets
By Patricia Hagerty
This story of shame and secrets is almost mythic (and truly original) in its subject matter. Young Ruth is the daughter of Mathilda and Carl (who has gone off to fight in WWI). Mattie's sister Amanda, a nurse who has been caring for seriously ill and injured young men has been called home to help Mattie with Ruth, but she brings influenza with her, and soon both of their parents die from it. Amanda and Mattie struggle to run the Wisconsin farm with the help of a hired man. Amanda is seduced by a married man and becomes pregnant, much to her horror; she does not tell the father of her baby. Mandy and Mattie spend the pregnancy living in a small house which Carl had built for Mattie on an island in the lake abutting the farm. In November Mandy gives birth, panics, and tries to run away with the baby across the ice; little Ruth also panics and follows her. When Mattie discovers they are gone, she too runs after Mandy but falls through the ice with Ruth in her arms, and Mandy rescues Ruth but is unable to rescue Mattie. Mandy, back at the farmhouse, gives her infant away to a friend who has recently lost a baby and raises Ruth with care. Soon Carl returns from the war and as he recovers he tries to help on the farm although he has little talent for it. During grade school Ruth and Mandy's daughter Imogene become fast friends, eventually attending secretarial school together, going to dances, and planning to work together in Chicago. Both Ruth and Imogene become romantically interested in young Arthur whose father Chester is, in fact, Imogene's father, so when Mandy becomes aware of this romance she panics and vows to tell Chester the truth – that Chester is Imogene's father – but she unintentionally causes Chester's death. The Chicago plans dry up, Imogene marries another, and Ruth vows to stay on the farm. None of this narrative is revealed in a chronological way. Rather, changes in narration and flashes of uncertain memory on the part of Ruth trigger revelations until the whole story is gradually known to the reader. This is a complex, well-told story which is fascinating to read.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
She Should Have Gone to Chicago.....**Spoiler Alert***
By Bridget Clopper-Bailey
I'd like to give this 3.5 stars. I absolutely loved the story for the first 3/4 of the book. Then Amanda pulls the typewriten notebook pages from Ruth's purse. When Ruth informs her those are from when she made mistakes typing at the Owens residence, there is no discussion about it. Amanda simply launches into her plan with which she needs Ruth's help. This is despite the fact that several pages earlier the reader is told Amanda didn't know Ruth skipped school to fill in for Imogene at work. That plot error bothered me. The ending seemed to come upon us a little too fast and I was sorely disappointed when Ruth stayed behind with the verbally abusive and obviously demented Amanda while Imogene fulfilled her dream life in Chicago. I wanted better for Ruth throughout the novel. Overall, a great read.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
A Wicked Web we weave, when we practice to deceive..
By Jean Turicik
This was one of the best stories I have read in a long time. So often an avid reader can predict where a story is going by the middle of the book-but Christina Schwarz really does a wonderful job of weaving a web that you just can't put all the pieces together until the last few pages.
The story takes place in Wisconsin and begins with Amanda, who is a nurse in the early 1920's, experiencing difficulties focusing on her patients at the hospital where she works. This is viewed as odd by her co-workers as she has always been viewed as a "natural" at her profession and well regarded by all. But suddenly she isn't coping, and she is unable to focus, and soon is becoming ill, and sleeping all the time on the job. The Dr. she reports to suggests she take some "time off" and visit her family back on the farm--he attributes her troubles to having recently lost both her Father and Mother. So off she goes, home to the farm and to her sister Mattie whose husband is fighting in the war, and her toddler niece, Ruth. This is where the journey begins and the deceit starts.........
I would recommend this book--it's a real page turner. I for one will be reading more of Christina Schwarz.
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