He journeys across the town to bring her a White Lay Angel Cake. But she eventually returns to the place of her birth to live a wretched existence on the fringes of the community where she can protectively foster the spirits of departed babies. Ruby also comes to embody all that’s wrong in her community – all the evil things which remain hidden from doe-eyed believers of purity.Īs a young woman Ruby escapes the suffocating confines and abuse of her small community in Texas to live under a different kind of oppression in New York City. She’s a fantastically realized character: an intelligent and strong individual. In Cynthia Bond’s novel, Ruby is a girl who has never had any such illusions of the world’s purity having been shown at an early age the wrath and domineering power of men. We slowly understand that our place in the world has to be earned or fought for and that our ancestors undoubtedly have blood on their hands. But, as we grow older, we learn the truth about current and past injustice. If we’re lucky enough to be raised in a relatively peaceful and happy household we might believe that we’re the innocent inheritors of a well-meaning world.
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