Title: Ruth’s Journey
Author: Donald McCaig
Read by: Cherise Boothe
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Author: Donald McCaig
Read by: Cherise Boothe
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Length: 14
hours (12 CDs)
Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster – Thanks!
Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster – Thanks!
Ruth’s Journey is subtitled “the authorized novel of Mammy
from Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind.”
I am a huge Gone with the Wind fan.
I obsessively watched the move as a kid and then read the book first
when I was around 13 and a few times since then. It is a sprawling masterpiece of historical
fiction with a great cast of characters, especially Scarlett, who is a heroine
that you often find a hard time liking.
One great character in the book and movie is Mammy, who is one of the
only people that truly understands Scarlett and isn’t afraid to tell her what
she thinks about her actions. Ruth’s
Journey finally gives a name to Mammy, Ruth, and tells her story from childhood
through the picnic at Twelve Oaks where Rhett and Scarlett meet and the very
start of the Civil War.
Ruth’s Journey starts in Saint-Domingue which is
undergoing a revolution. Scarlett’s
grandmother, Solange Fornier lives on the island with her husband Captain
Augustin Fornier. Captain Fornier finds
a young child amongst carnage and the only one left living amongst her
family. He takes her home to his wife
Solange and she names her Ruth. Ruth
stays with them as they flee the island for a new life in Savannah. Ruth has some adventures of her own and
eventually becomes Mammy to Solange’s daughter Ellen and then moves up country
to Tara when Ellen marries Gerald O’Hara and becomes a mother herself.
As a fan of Gone with the Wind I enjoyed the story and
getting more background about different characters, in particular I loved
learning about all of the neighbors of Tara and their life before the war. What I didn’t like is that this didn’t really
seem like Ruth’s Journey at all. It was
Solange’s journey with Ruth as a bit side character until CD five when the story
abruptly shifts to Ruth as the main character.
At that point I missed Solange as I felt it was her story. The story of
Ruth as a wife and a mother was the strongest part of the novel for me. There was one heart breaking scene that had
me in tears. It’s hard to believe that
human beings treated others that way.
When Ruth is no longer a wife and mother and becomes Mammy again the
story is once again really about everyone around Ruth and not about Ruth
herself. I wish we could have gotten a
more in depth look at Ruth as Mammy and the doings downstairs versus upstairs
like the novel Netherfield (Pride and Prejudice told from the servants’ point
of view). I also wondered how this book
could have gone if it had been written by Alice Walker or Maya Angelou.
Cherise Booth was a fine narrator and was the voice of
Mammy to me. The audio story kept me
interested on my long drives to work.
Overall, I would recommend this to fans of Gone with
the Wind with the caveat that you will find out a lot more about Scarlett’s
grandmother, childhood, and other side characters, but not as much about Mammy
as you would like.