Peachtree Road, by Anne Rivers Siddons

Read, reviewed, and released in December, 2013

A sad, dark novel of family dysfunction, domestic violence, and insanity in a well-bred Southern family of the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia spanning from the early 1950s to the 1970s and 80s.

Shep, a middle aged man who describes himself as a recluse and a hermit reflects on his childhood at the burial of his cousin Lucy. He and Lucy bonded as friends and confidants from the moment she moved into his family home when she was five years old and he was seven. The novel carries us through the adventures of their childhood, the risks of adolescence, and the angst of early adulthood, along with that of their families and close friends.
The fact that Lucy died is no spoiler, as the Prologue opens with her funeral. How she died is the surprise, and Shep's fate remains a mystery.

Bright Flows The River, by Taylor Caldwell

Reviewed in February, 2013, released later

I tried reading this book earlier this month, but finally gave up. Too depressing, all in a mental hospital with a patient who tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide. Frequent flashbacks to his dysfunctional childhood and unhappy marriage. I couldn't get involved enough in the characters to continue reading. This book is now available, and will be released soon.

The Bell Jar: A Novel, by Sylvia Plath

Read, reviewed and released in May-June, 2009

I just finished reading this book last night. It was quite a trip! It's considered a work of fiction, but apparently is almost autobiographical. The main character, Esther Greenwood, suffered from mental illness and tried to kill herself several times in several different ways. Sylvia Plath suffered from mental illness, and killed herself in 1963. Esther's life paralleled Sylvia's in many details, including college, a month working as a sort of intern on a fashion magazine, hospitalization, and being subjected to electrical shock treatments.

When I was in college, in the late 1960s, I had a friend who suffered a "nervous breakdown" as it was called then, left school, was hospitalized and underwent electrical shock treatments. Those years in college are completely erased from her memory, even now.

The Book of Ruth, by Jane Hamilton

I read and reviewed this book in September, 2002. I was a new Bookcrosser, and had met another new Bookcrosser at a bookstore. We exchanged books, as Bookcrossers do. This is the one she gave me; I sent it to another Bookcrosser after finishing it, as part of a bookbox.

I found The Book of Ruth disturbing, depressing, and haunting, but I couldn't put it down. Just had to keep reading, to find out what happens next. The horriying climax is indescribable.

This book has remained in my mind like few others. It was disturbing, yes, and I didn't enjoy reading it, but it has made me think, and consider in a new way people I might not have given a second thought. The main character in The Book of Ruth was so unlike me that I had trouble relating to her, but I was able to see that people like her aren't just "poor white trash." They have feelings, emotions, dreams, hopes, and maybe make poor decisions for lack of perceiving better choices.

I won't just dismiss such people when I see them around town, or read about them in the newspaper. I will try to remember that they are real people with real lives, and problems that I can't imagine.