Search - A Virtuous Woman

A terrible title as I don't see how it relates to this little bittersweet tale at all.
It is a love story that can be read in a few consecutive hours, but should haunt you for days, and I'm not sure why. Perhaps the Southern tone...I'm a sucker there. Or that it is half told by an old man reminiscing...I'm a sucker there, too. And told somewhat from the grave...
In thinking about this, and trying to write out the plot here without looking it up on amazon, I can't. I don't know what the plot is. And I don't care.
I highly recommend this little book.

I absolutely love Kaye Gibbons and her ability to use voice in her writing. This novel is no exception. As usual, she examines the point of view of southern female characters and Ruby Pitt Woodrow does not dissappoint. Her background would lead one to expect that she would marry up in society, but reality has another course for her to follow. Very readable and relatable. I highly recommend this novel.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Oprah Book Club® Selection, October 1997: Gibbons's novel, A Virtuous Woman, takes place in the same hardscrabble part of the world as Ellen Foster. The virtuous woman is Ruby Pitt Woodrow, a woman who might have ended up like Ellen Foster's mother if fate, in the shape of Jack Stokes, hadn't crossed her path. The daughter of prosperous farmers, Ruby runs off with a migrant worker who treats her badly, then abandons her far from home. When she meets Jack, a man 20 years her senior, she's working as a cleaning woman in another prosperous farmer's house. Jack is a man women don't look at even once, let alone twice; Ruby is a woman who needs someone to take care of her. Out of this unlikely union grows a quiet kind of love that is no less powerful for being unstated.
Ellen Foster and A Virtuous Woman share more than just location and a few characters in common. Though each is a complete novel in and of itself, taken together the two books resonate one another: Ellen Foster and Ruby Pitt Woodrow are both damaged people who find the kind of love they need to heal. These multilayered novels are tough-minded and resolutely unsentimental, just like their protagonists. Yet like Ellen and Ruby, each contains a nut of sweetness at its core that takes the bitter edge off the hard lives and hard stories Kaye Gibbons has to tell.

Well written inside a life AND DEATH

This book is an Oprah's Book Club selection. It's not the worst book that I've ever read; it's not the best book. It's just OK. It is about Blinking Jack Stokes and his wife Ruby Pitts Woodrow Stokes and each chapter alternates between the two of them (though it's not delineated anywhere so it does get a bit confusing if you put the book down, pick it up later and you think you are reading it from his perspective, but it's really from her point of view). Ruby was 20 years old and newly a widow when they met, and he was a 40 year old tenant farmer. The story isn't really told in a linear fashion (but that didn't bother me much). I found many of the side characters interesting, particularly Tiny Fran, she made me want to smack her with something heavy, lol! It is a very quick read; I started it last night (Dec. 30) and finished it this morning (Dec. 31). If I didn't have to go to sleep or take care of laundry and things in the meantime, I probably could have read this in less than 3 uninterrupted hours. It's a good book to pass the time with, but nothing extraordinary.

very good