Bibliographic information:
Author: Kate Riley
Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
Release date: August 19, 2025
Audiobook Duration: 7 h 34 min
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BOOK DESCRIPTION: “It would never work out, but I’m in love with Ruth.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“There are inklings of greatness in Kate Riley’s first novel… I suspect it will become an underground classic.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“Irresistibly smart and funny.” —Jenny Offill, author of Weather and Dept. of Speculation
“The serenely weird testament of an unintentional heroine in an intentional community, and an act of novelistic grace that deserves not only cult status but its own religion.” —Joshua Cohen, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Netanyahus
In this mesmerizing and profound novel, the arc of a woman’s life in a devout, insular community challenges our deepest assumptions about what infuses life with meaning.
Ruth is raised in a snow globe of Christian communism, a world without private property, television, or tolerance for idle questions. Every morning she braids her hair and wears the same costume, sings the same breakfast song in a family room identical to every other family room in the community; every one of these moments is meant to be a prayer, but to Ruth they remain puzzles. Her life is seen in glimpses through childhood, marriage, and motherhood, as she tries to manage her own perilous curiosity in a community built on holy mystery. Is she happy? Might this in fact be happiness? Ruth immerses us in an experience that challenges our most fervent beliefs.