For a variety of reasons as I read this book, I often felt off center or confused by it.
One aspect was quite clear and repeated in a variety of ways. The central theme of how badly one person in a relationship might be treated was illustrated in two examples. The first was Ruth’s art teacher from college days. Moser says that he’d forgiven his mother for the cruelty he experienced at her hand as a child. Ruth’s take is that she has no respect for him because he hasn’t forgiven her, despite his advanced age. Another is that when Ruth finally has a boyfriend in college, it turns out he stole her money, said he was taking his own life, and disappeared. Ruth is slow to see what was happening.. This sets up the central dreadful relationship, the one between Ruth and her childhood friend Maria. Ruth and her family took in the orphaned Maria, a bright and talented kid. The life-long obsession that Ruth had for Maria never ended, despite multiple betrayals.
I do admire a book that conveys the theme in more than one guise, but I was often confused by the exposition of the story. This quote about a schoolmate left me wondering whether she was plain or pretty: “Jane, whose plain looks and long hair seemed then like the most tremendous, unattainable privilege. Jane was considered one of the prettiest girls in the class and was ostracized for it.”
The high school music teacher seemed to have a questionable relationship with Maria. He gave her an inappropriate present, but then he and his wife were kind and generous to Maria and her bipolar aunt. Ruth says, “I suspected they weren’t just being charitable.” It was unclear to me whether her suspicion was accurate or resulted from her jealousy for the attention Maria gave Mr. Fournier.
Ruth’s parents were immigrants from Africa; her mother enrolled her in a Catholic school in Rhode Island to insure she wouldn’t fall through the cracks in public school. There she met and immediately was taken with Maria. They remained friends through college and Ruth followed Maria to Manhattan and lived with Maria and her girlfriend. Sexual attraction to Maria was part of Ruth’s story.
Ruth clarifies her approach to relationships when she says this, “As a child, I’d understood suffering as preparatory, as something that prepared us for death, glory, and eternal life. Now I saw it as useful in a new way, something that could be made into art.” This comes after a showing that Maria arranged of a short film about a woman being humiliated and shamed by a man.
I couldn’t connect with the willingness to be obsessed with someone who actively humiliated her. I kept looking for the artistry in this book.
Stephanie Wambugu, Lonely Crowds, Little, Brown and Company, 2025, 304 pages. Available at the public library.