Customer Reviews

A Virtuous Woman

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

This is an amazing book on so many levels. I particlarly like the way the story was told from two different points of view--from that of the two main characters. The swing back and forth was most effective and Gibbons knows how to get us wrapped up in a story. The writing is good--on the same level as McCrae's "Bark of the Dogwood" or Conroy's "Prince of Tides" and the pacing and character development is excellent. I could have wished for a slightly different ending, but then, it's Gibbon's book and not mine. Overall, highly recommended.

Also recommended: ON THE OCCASION OF MY LAST AFTERNOON and Jackson McCrae's THE BARK OF THE DOGWOOD. Both are great reads.

This book was a love story about a daughter from Carolina who was brought up carefully and a farmer who never in his life had the chance to own anything. They both came from different backgrounds. The daughterï¿s name was Ruby Pitt Woodrow and the farmerï¿s mane was Blinking Jack Stokes. Ruby first became a widow after a brutal relationship she was in with John Woodrow. She gave her parents and her two brothers a surprise when she ran away with John. John was also a farmer and died in a brawl. Considering she was a brought up well and with proud she didnï¿t ask her parents for help. So, she decided to go work at a wealthy home with the Hoover family. This is where she first meets Jack. When Jack first meets Ruby she was twenty and he was forty and they got married five months later. At first they werenï¿t in love, but then after a while when they started to need each other and became they were there for each other. Ruby become sick with cancer and really needed Jack more then ever. It starts with Jack grieving over the death of Ruby. While the rest oh the chapters gives flashbacks on the past. Both jack and Ruby were very lonely and in the need of wanting at the beginning. They received a lot a support by friends that they had. This book is a very touching novel and gives strong emotions. It shows the different between two lovers who have very different backgrounds and end up falling in love with each other. I recommend this book to others because it is not hard to read and itï¿s easy to understand. This love story make people think about how others donï¿t really miss something or someone until itï¿s gone. People take things for granted when itï¿s there but when itï¿s not there no more then they stop to think about what really just happened.

A Virtuous Woman by Kaye Gibbons. Not recommended.

In A Virtuous Woman, Kaye Gibbons tells the story of the daughter of Southern gentry, Ruby Pitt Woodrow Stokes; her tenant farmer second husband, Jack Stokes; and those who affect their lives mostï¿Burr, his wife Tiny Fran, her delinquent son Roland, and their daughter June.

Gibbons uses a technique of alternating chapters, with the first written by Jack, the next by Ruby, and so on, until the last chapter. Chapter sixteen is written in the third person omniscient, with characters' thoughts sprinkled throughout in italics. This method is effective in the beginning, where Jack talks about his reaction to the news that Ruby has been diagnosed with lung cancer and her silent, selfish request for a cigarette, while next she talks about her response to his reaction and her own motivation. Further into the plot, however, this method loses its impact as the reminiscences become more random and less structured.

Although the idea of alternating chapters, most flashbacks except Jack's chapters toward the end, lends itself to a more dynamic approach to time, Gibbons keeps it virtually linear, from Ruby's youth and disastrous first marriage to a drunken, controlling migrant worker named John Woodrow and his death to her marriage to Jack, the notable events of their lives, Ruby's death, and Jack's life after Ruby.

Although A Virtuous Woman is well written and in a few instances somewhat insightful. The characters often seem to lack interest or depth; some, like Woodrow, Tiny Fran, and Roland, are little more than stock rural characters (no-good man, no-good teenaged girl, no-good bastard). They appear primarily to fulfill a standard a role and have little interestï¿they exist only to explain such things as Ruby's path toward Jack and the Stokes's unusual interest in Burr and Tiny Fran's daughter June. When Woodrow is critically injured in a drunken brawl, the wives of the other migrant workers feel Ruby should "stand by her man" no matter what, which also seems to perpetuate a type rather than offer any real insight.

Above all, A Virtuous Woman feels forced and unnatural. It is out of character for a barely literate man like Jack Stokes to document his memories, including quoted conversations, in such detail and with such care. This would have been a stronger story if presented as an oral history rather than a written one.

The unlikely love story and marriage of Jack Stokes and Ruby Pitt Woodrow Stokes has potential, as do the characters. Unfortunately, Gibbons does not have the depth as an author to uncover it.

Diane L. Schirf, 19 August 2003.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I love how it was narrated by both of the main characters. The way it went back and forth between them made you understand how they felt about each other. Kaye Gibbons beautifully depicted a rare kind of love between a husband and wife. I cannot understand some of the low ratings I have been reading, but everyone has their opinion. I loved the characters and I highly recommend this book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I love how it was narrated by both of the main characters. The way it went back and forth between them made you understand how they felt about each other. Kaye Gibbons beautifully depicted a rare kind of love between a husband and wife. I cannot understand some of the low ratings I have been reading, but everyone has their opinion. I loved the characters and I highly recommend this book.

Hard to imagine anyone other than Kaye Gibbons writing a story of simple love between two people with troubled histories - and bringing it off with such beautiful panache. Told principally in flashbacks as Jack Stokes is grieving over Ruby's death, the tale of their dissimilar backgrounds, courtship, and improbably successful marriage is written with unsentimental straightforward power.

This is a story told in two voices.
One is Ruby's...kind,beautiful Ruby, who happens to be at the right place at the right time when she meets Jack Stokes. The opposite of her abusive, drinkin, womenizin first husband. Ruby tells us how Jack takes her away from all that dysfunction, promising her a decent life, caring for her, treating her like the lady she is.
Jack devotes himself completely to Ruby, gives his heart to her, showing his love in unique ways. For instance, buying her a mule!

He isn't the best looking man, or the smartest...but that was enough for Ruby.

Then there's Jack's voice. Jack is a man after my own heart. I couldn't help thinking...this book could have just as well been called, "A Virtuous Man"
40 yrs old when he sets eyes on Ruby sitting under a pecan tree...He says, "now that's a girl I could marry."
And after those eyes meet hers, nothing is the same. Everything afterwards begins and ends with Ruby.

I adored Jacks narrative, his kindness, the love he expressed to Ruby. After Ruby dies, the only thing keeping him going is wishing and hoping she comes back...laying next to him in bed, her skin touching his skin, smelling of lavender, and eating her usual dish of yogurt.

Gibbon's gives us other memorable characters also, like Little Fran, who is the devil dressed as a fat woman.
She gives up Mavis, who is hired when Ruby dies to help around the house but mostly helps herself to orange candy and soda and breaks the toilet seat.

I enjoyed the book, but the 4 star rating is for Jack. His voice makes the story much more interesting than it would have been otherwise.

After reading and loving "Ellen Foster," I expected great things from this book. Instead I found a rather simple story of love and grief, of living and losing. Ruby Pitt Woodrow Stokes, the main character, marries a man 20 years her senior after several bad choices early on in life. Yet her character never seems to grow or reach an epiphany, as even she herself admits that all she wants is "someone to take care of her." I find little about this weak, dependent, atheistic woman to be "virtuous." The man she marries, Jack Stokes, seems equally immature and one wonders how he will ever survive without someone to take care of him. Jack and Ruby's "love" seems to be more like basic companionship or puppy-love than anything of real feeling. Neither character can seem to take care of his/herself, yet they both find great humor in making fun of the one man who reaches out to them and tries to help them find God.
I ended the book knowing little more about the characters than I did when I began it. I did enjoy Gibbons tied "Ellen Foster" into the story, though.

I don't really know how I feel about this book. It was easy to read, the story was sweet, but it lacked a certain spark. Maybe it isn't needed in this book, but I felt like I was missing something. The story of Jack and Ruby was appealing, two people who find someone to depend on and to love. They don't have a particularly passionate relationship. Their love is built on comfort and respect. I felt that the characters were well developed for the most part. But,again, when I finished the book, I was left wanting more. Also, the switching of perspectives from chapter to chapter and the inconsistence of time bothered me a little. To sum up, I liked the story, especially the last couple of paragraphs, but I would have liked more...

This is a great little story about simple love (not lust
or passion) and the sweet dignity of grief.

The characters are real and believable, the plot is down
to earth, and the dialoge is common-sense with plenty
of doses of sly Southern humor.

Burr's offer of the land to the grief-stricken Jack was
heartwarming. He knew that with nothing else left in
his lonely life, Jack could go mad or decide there was
nothing left to live for. His awaiting Ruby's spirit at
night in their bed reminded me of Heathcliff's obsessive
love for the dead Catherine in Wuthering Heights.

This novel is a simple yet intimate portrayal of living,
caring, and finally dying; unabashedly truthful.