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This novel is about Jack and Ruby Stokes and their marriage. They don’t
have your typical love story. Ruby was just emerging as a widow from a nightmarish
experience when she met him. She was from a higher-income family and twenty
years younger than him, and yet they managed a long, happy marriage, the details
of which both of them share as the speakers in alternating chapters.
This book fell in my “good book, glad I read it, but doesn’t fall
into my favorites” category. Now don’t misunderstand—this book
fell into the appropriate place in my head where I could refer back to it when
needed, and I’m glad I read it to fill that gap. It’s a necessary
part of my literary memory now.
But it didn’t quite make it into my favorites—I’m a bit puzzled
what was lacking, though others I’ve talked to about it have had the same
experience. In fact, I’m told there are other Kaye Gibbons novels I should
read because they were better. I’m planning to try a couple, especially
since I went to hear the author speak and she’s fabulous to listen to.
A Virtuous Woman definitely has its merits in spite of its puzzling
somewhere-above-average-ness. The characters are vivid, the marriage between
the two speakers is extraordinarily well described, the dialects are well done,
and the plot stands out. This is one of those books I’ll think of in reference
to many different subjects. I can’t quite figure why I don’t like it more.
