欧宝娱乐

Thank you, @riverheadbooks, for the gifted book. I also purchased the audio for a read/listen and #buddyread this book with my mom. Another #NonfictionNovember recommendation.

I read my first book by well-loved author James McBride, and I think it was fitting it was the memoir he wrote in tribute to his mother, first published in 1997.

It鈥檚 no wonder Ruth McBride Jordan, James鈥檚 mother, became such a sensation after publication. I lack the words to capture all that she was; all this book is in tribute to her. I read mostly to feel and connect, and my feelings are strong and immeasurable.

The book covers, in tandem, Ruth鈥檚 life, as well as the author鈥檚, switching between her narrative and his own. Ruth is born in Poland to Jewish parents. She arrives in the United States, and her father becomes a traveling rabbi, moving the family various places. They eventually set up roots in Suffolk, Virginia, a place I know well, with a store on Main Street (where a McDonalds now sits). Suffolk as a whole is not a kind place to grow up Jewish, and Ruth鈥檚 life is fraught with trauma and strife at home with an abusive father and a mother with serious health issues. Ruth leaves home and finds love in the biggest way, with James McBride鈥檚 father. They go on to have 8 children together, and Ruth does a lot of spiritual healing thanks to her husband and the warmth of the church they form together.

Tragedy strikes, and Ruth and her children are left without their anchor. Eventually, she finds true love again and has four more children. Ruth鈥檚 most profound joy is through the successes of her children, which are listed in the novel. Each and every one has gone on to great things. They give their thanks to Ruth and the importance she placed on education. Her firm and steadfast nature in guiding them when her hands were very, very full.

You can鈥檛 help but be inspired by Ruth. As a daughter cut out of her birth family, grieved as dead to them because she loved and married a Black man, she took the beautiful love she found with him and multiplied it infinitely.

A forever favorite. A must-read.

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