Excerpt from The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Soon after he left we sat in church on Sunday and I could see how sorry people felt for me. I could hear their whisperings about the latest tragedy. I could tell by their faces and their eyes that we were new and strange. They came past us in church, filing out, and I knew suddenly they were the kind of people who would pet me, like I was an animal that didn't have a single chance to survive. The young Mr. Snodgrass bent down to me while May was in the ladies' room and he told me that I was going to be a big strong pretty girl one of these days, and I appreciated his words. But I could tell from the scowl on his wife's face that he was lying. I had heard Aunt Sid telling May she looked pinched once, and I wanted to ask Mr. Snodgrass, right then and there, if I was pinched too. When I got home I took out the mirror to examine my new and strange looks. My eyes are squinched together; they're small and gray and they don't open all the way wide. My mouth isn't too much better off. It's tight like a closed drawstring laundry bag. There's nothing special about my nose: it's small and sits on my face like someone set it down and forgot to come back for it. My hair, my best feature, is nothing more than tight brown curls stuck to my head like I'd taken glue to them, but at least there's room for improvement. When Daisy does my hair over it looks shiny and fluffy, like a soufflé cooked up to perfection. May is very much the same, except she's older and uglier and heavier than I am, and she has a wart by her nose. She has wrinkles too, like she went and slept face down on an oven rack. Sometimes I see her standing by the door, in plain view. She's so clear and radiant she hurts my eyes.

Excerpted from The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton Copyright © 1989 by Jane Hamilton. Excerpted by permission of Anchor, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.