Through a Ruby Window (American Storytelling) - Hardcover

Klein, Susan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0874834163 ISBN 13: 9780874834161

Publisher: August House, 2006

Synopsis

At once funny, tender, and wise, these stories transport the readers to their own metaphorical islands. 

"Before geography lessons and off-island travel enlightened us, we children assumed that all people lived as we did. We thought the world was made up of islands, each having its own merry-go-round. What a pity we were wrong.” So begins this collection of fifteen beautiful stories, each a window into Susan Klein's distinctive experience growing up on Martha's Vineyard.

The island was then a sleepy community animated by the annual Bass and Bluefish Derby with its exaggerated fishing lore, full-day beach parties where family buried barrels of hot rocks, sausage, linguica, onions and seaweed in the sand to steam cook―and the nation's oldest merry-go-round, a creaking wonder of murals, glitter, and brass rings. In one story young Susan packs coffee and sugar with her mother to send to relatives in Germany while learning about life in the old country. In another, she walks barefoot through a raging thunderstorm with eccentric Aunt Fanny. 

About this title

About the Author

Susan Klein Bio: 

Susan Klein is noted for a variety of presentations. She tours her one-woman shows internationally in theaters, at conferences, and at special events. Her highly acclaimed storytelling and memoir writing workshops are held annually on Martha's Vineyard and around the nation and in Europe. Susan's substantial repertoire includes selections from the world body of folklore and myth, literary stories, rites of passage and love stories for adults of all ages. Her autobiographical material encompasses growing up on Martha's Vineyard, waitressing and teaching school and her work as an itinerant storyteller in Alaskan Yup'ik Eskimo villages in the Kuskokwim Delta.

Reviews

Klein, who performs at the Annual Festival of Storytelling on Martha's Vineyard, must be an engaging entertainer because her prose so strongly conveys her narratives with love and humor. The various stories in the collection--recollections of her German mother; keen childhood observations about her parents' divorce, her father's departure, her mother's financial difficulties; and a child's questioning of adult hypocrisy witnessed in religious practice and bigotry--offer insight both into childhood perception and the power and urgency of memory. Moreover, the book provides details that help the reader visualize life on Martha's Vineyard--the island's natural characteristics as well as its annual inundation by tourists. Klein narrates with all the accuracy of childhood innocence and awe, with the overall effect of drawing us into another world, into a child's imagination, but this place is real. Janet St. John

Edition details

• Publisher: August House
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0874834163
• ISBN 13: 9780874834161
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192