At First I Hope for Rescue - Hardcover

Rubinsky, Holley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312180438 ISBN 13: 9780312180430

Publisher: Picador USA, 1998

Synopsis

Five intertwined stories share the lives of friends and family in the town of Ruth, British Columbia, as they struggle with child custody, loss of hope, the discovery of incest, and cross-country travel

About this title

About the Author

Holley Rubinsky grew up in Southern California before moving to Canada, and now divides her time between Los Angeles, Toronto, and Arizona.

Reviews

These five linked stories confront a range of contemporary ills and bewilderments: incest, bulimia, past-life regression, mental illness and substance abuse. Most of the tales are set in the fictional resort town of Ruth, British Columbia, and some take place in the American West. At the heart of the matter is the primordial tug-of-war between the sexes. Rubinsky's men are generally loutish, if not criminally abusive, and the women more or less endure them. In "Necessary Balance," motel proprietor Bet Harker wishes for something more than "a useless mate and a shabby resort." Embarrassed by her "thick-waisted, sausage-legged self stuffed into [a] new Sears catalogue summer dress," Bet can't stop her fantasy of dancing with Larry, her best friend's husband, even though, next to her husband, "Larry is my least favorite man." By the story's end, however, Bet's life has been so shattered that she yearns for a return to the merely ordinary. In "Algorithms," a Santa Barbara, Calif., housewife is unable to tell her perfectionist gynecologist husband about their daughter's bulimia, for which he is probably to blame. The former mental patient who narrates "The Other Room" reviews her life, which comes in and out of focus as it entwines with her imagined past as a concentration-camp survivor. "Road's End" confirms the sick truth in the local belief that women want to be abused. With the exception of a few moments, it's all pretty bleak and loveless, but Rubinsky writes in a gritty first-person voice that allows her characters to express insight, both deliberate and unconscious, into their confounded souls.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Canadian Rubinsky's debut consists of five longish stories on trendy topics--child abuse, bulimia, self abuse, etc.--that still don't manage to smother entirely the robust natural energies of her writing. Most of the pieces are set in or connected to the small Alberta town of Ruth, on a lake named Judith--though Rubinsky's ideas seem to arise about equally from setting and from topic. ``Necessary Balance,'' gets at the texture and uncertainty of the lives of two married Ruth couples--one upscale (husband a successful building supplier), one not (husband and wife operate a shabby lake resort); the old and established friendship among this middle-aging foursome is more than enough story for Rubinsky's talents--but things quickly grow made-for-TV-ish as one of the fathers gets caught having sex with his teen daughter (albeit not his ``real'' one) and denies it. Down in L.A., a sister of one of these Ruth mothers is an alcoholic who's married to an insensitive gynecologist and has a bulimic daughter (``Algorithms''); she meets, it may be said, a dreadful end. Rubinsky's stories are pulled between the desire for a real telling of real life and a hyped-up theme-driven element that takes the form of characters, often lower class, telling their own tales in ways that are inexplicably eloquent indeed--as in the high verbal tumble of the comic ``Fetish,'' told by a trailer-trash character in Arizona who masturbates on his own babies. ``The Other Room'' is told by a woman driven mad by the death of her child; and ``Road's End'' returns to Ruth and the Snopesian saga of squalor, poverty, self-abuse, madness--and hope, it would seem--told by the older brother of the Arizona masturbator. Verbal energy, narrative drive, high pace, an eye hungry for detail--all show a writer waiting at the gate for when she finds her true subjects. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Rubinsky's collection consists of five long stories, each at least tangentially related to the small Canadian resort town of Ruth. Numerous kinds of tragedy are explored, including child abuse, incest, bulimia, mental illness, and self-mutilation. This, along with the first-person narration of each story, leads to a somber sameness throughout the collection, though characters' ages and genders, as well as settings, vary widely. While the mentally unstable narrator of "The Other Room" is a remarkable achievement, Rubinsky's attempt at teenage slang in "Algorithms" is at times painful. The narrators are usually unlikable, and the other characters flat and underdeveloped. Not recommended.?Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Idaho Lib., Moscow
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Picador USA
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312180438
• ISBN 13: 9780312180430
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 245