A Virtuous Woman

Began reading this book after lunch and finished it before bedtime. First published in 1989, A VIRTUOUS WOMAN was an Oprah"s Book Club pick. A lovely little book about second chances and an unlikely match between widowed twenty year-old Ruby and Jack, a forty year-old tenant farmer, a union which endures for twenty-five years. This small Carolina parable has much to teach us - about poor choices, loss, grief and redemption. And love, of course. I was especially moved by its depiction of an old man suddenly left to fend for himself when his wife dies. It's a story told with sensitivity and grace, leavened with generous doses of country humor. So glad I found this novel, even thirty years late. I loved it. My highest recommendation.

- Tim show more Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

Beautifully written, A Virtuous Women, is the quiet love story of Ruby Pitt Woodrow, daughter of a rich farmer, and Jack Stokes, a tenant farmer. At first they seem an unlikely match, Ruby, although 20 years younger than Jack, is already widowed, Jack, unattractive and unsuccessful, has never been married. But both have had tough lives. Ruby is alienated from her parents due to her brief marriage which was a disaster. She is working as a maid when she meets Jack. Jack has never had much, although his dream is to own a piece of land. Together they find, if not what they were looking for, a sense of completeness.

The book is written in first person narration with both Jack and Ruby narrating alternate chapters (except the last chapter show more which is written in the third person). This technique helps make both characters seem real. For me, personally, Jack was the character I most cared about, mostly because we know from the very beginning that Ruby dies and we see that Jack is lost without her.

This is one of those simple, quiet kind of books where there is little action or plot, just the story of two people who come to love and care for each other. Yet, it's the kind of story that will stay with you long after you've read it. show less

I really loved this book. I picked it up because the title intrigued me and it seemed like a short easy read, which it was. I found myself surprised by the richness of it all. I didn't think that you could feel so connected to so many characters in such a short amount of time. Ms. Gibbons crafts such complex characters, who all have very distinct voices, and paints an entire relationship so beautifully. She is clearly a very talented author and I cannot wait to get my hands onto more of her novels.

While I found the voices of the narrators endearing, others may find that the book moves too slow and falls short of reaching “page turner” status. I honestly think the style of writing may be off-putting for those that like a more staccato and unmistakable voice in their narrator. However, even if the language isn’t your preferred style, I encourage you to stick with this one. Why?

Well, because when we look beyond the language we have a beautifully narrated story about a love that exists between an unlikely couple, under troubling circumstances. The narrators, Ruby and Jack, both share with the reader their perspectives on how their relationship developed. Through them you come to see the real experiences and emotions that help show more form the bond between these two individuals. Having two narrators share their sides of the same story gives you a full-bodied view of the relationship, which isn’t as likely when a story is told from a single point of view.

Moreover, as the reader you feel privy to nuances of their relationship that they might not even know about each other. You can’t help but feel that somehow you are “in on the secret” that made this unlikely pair quite perfect under the circumstances.

Interested yet? Of course you are. :) Although this book may be a slow read for some, I think it is one of the purest and most unpretentious love stories to come along in quite a while. Read my full review on my blog, Honey Lemon Tea. http://honeylemontea.com/2014/01/14/book-review-a-virtuous-woman-by-kaye-gibbons... show less

Gibbons's novel, a novella, really, is the story of a southern woman's relationships and the profound effect she has on those close to her. Born to a privileged family, Ruby Pitt enters first a disastrous, then a profoundly loving marriage. Though these relationships move her squarely into the working class, we see that love triumphs over class, status, and lineage. Told in alternating chapters by Ruby and her husband, Jack, at the time surrounding her early death from cancer, the book relates the history of Ruby and Jack's relationship. This is not a plot-driven, so much as an emotion-driven book. A beautiful, quick read, I couldn't help but feel deeply for Ruby, and especially for Jack.

Summary:
When Blinking Jack Stokes met Ruby Pitt Woodrow, she was 20 and he was 40. She was the daughter of Carolina gentry. He was a skinny tena nt farmer who had never owned anything in his life. They didn't fall in love so much as they simply found each ot her and held on for dear life.

I do not like the summary above, so I went to GoodReads to see what they had. Sadly, they had the same, but with this added:
In A Virtuous Woman, Gibbons transcends her early promise, creating a multilayered and indelibly convincing portrait of two seemingly ill-matched people who somehow miraculously make a marriage.

This book is a very, very sweet telling of a lifetime of love between a husband and wife. Told in alternating viewpoints of the husband, show more then the wife, you get a complete picture of their past, their meeting, courtship and years together. Ruby dies from lung cancer, and the story continues with how her passing changes Jack's life.

To say that these two "held on for dear life" is so dramatic and untrue. They found one another and settled into what the other needed. I saw them more as two halves of one whole as opposed to two people spinning through life like a combined tornado. Their love was slow, steady and constant. Just what you want it to be.

Recommended show less

This book was a total universe offering, in a "FREE BOOKS" box at work that also brought me The Kite Runner and several others that I haven't read yet. I opened it during SSR at school because it looked thin and easy to half-concentrate on while keeping an eye on students and (pretending that I am) marking participation points while modeling reading. I was drawn into the voices and the non-traditional chronology. The story itself was supremely quiet--to the point of being dull, honestly--but there was some nice emotion in the spare prose that alternated between the voices of Blinking Jack and his dead wife Ruby. But the ending was just plain odd; suddenly there were all these italics, all these minor characters suddenly spewing their show more thoughts all over...this scene that was supposed to feel tragic and climactic and in the end just...didn't work for me. Until then, I was willing to hang out with these understated characters, just listening to their little story in plain, simple words and cozy dialogue, with a little humor thrown in, but the emotion of that last scene just didn't resonate for me. I will pass this one on to Mom without asking her to give it back. show less