The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life - Hardcover

Dreher, Rod

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1455521914 ISBN 13: 9781455521913

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2013

Synopsis

The Little Way of Ruthie Leming follows Rod Dreher, a Philadelphia journalist, back to his hometown of St. Francisville, Louisiana (pop. 1,700) in the wake of his younger sister Ruthie's death. When she was diagnosed at age 40 with a virulent form of cancer in 2010, Dreher was moved by the way the community he had left behind rallied around his dying sister, a schoolteacher. He was also struck by the grace and courage with which his sister dealt with the disease that eventually took her life. In Louisiana for Ruthie's funeral in the fall of 2011, Dreher began to wonder whether the ordinary life Ruthie led in their country town was in fact a path of hidden grandeur, even spiritual greatness, concealed within the modest life of a mother and teacher. In order to explore this revelation, Dreher and his wife decided to leave Philadelphia, move home to help with family responsibilities and have their three children grow up amidst the rituals that had defined his family for five generations-Mardi Gras, L.S.U. football games, and deer hunting.
As David Brooks poignantly described Dreher's journey homeward in a recent New York Times column, Dreher and his wife Julie "decided to accept the limitations of small-town life in exchange for the privilege of being part of a community."

About this title

About the Author

Rod Dreher has been an editorial writer and columnist for the Dallas Morning News, a film critic for the New York Post, and currently writes for the American Conservative. He currently lives in St. Francisville, Louisiana with his wife Julie and his three children.

The Little Way of Ruthie Leming is his second book; his first was Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, Gun-Loving Organic Gardeners, Evangelical Free-Range Farmers, Hip Homeschooling Mamas, Right-Wing Nature Lovers, and Their Diverse Tribe of Countercultural Conservatives Plan to Save America (or At Least the Republican Party).

Reviews

Dreher and his sister, Ruthie, had always been different. While he chafed at their small town of St. Francisville, Louisiana, she was deeply at home and settled. His journalism career took him to New York and Washington, D.C., while she taught school and raised a family with her childhood sweetheart, staying close to the homestead their parents had made. She also stayed close to the rituals, traditions, and spirituality that knit family and community, a closeness and spirituality that fortified Ruthie when she was diagnosed with a virulent cancer. Watching his sister’s grace and the kindness of family, friends, and neighbors, Dreher pondered what he’d been missing in his own life and how he might achieve the sense of peace and connection at the center of Ruthie’s life. He goes deeper, in search of the reason for the abiding tension in their otherwise loving relationship and for the balance in his own family life that ultimately leads him back to the hometown he once fled. Dreher offers a hard-eyed self-examination and a loving, but complex, portrait of filial love. --Vanessa Bush

Edition details

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1455521914
• ISBN 13: 9781455521913
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288