Some Days There's Pie

Some Days There's Pie BY CATHERINE LANDIS (ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, $23.95)

In a bid to escape Summerville, Tennessee, Ruth Ritchie elopes with a stereo salesman, leaving behind a mother incapable of tenderness and a dead-end job at the local hardware store. Young Ruth likes life with her new husband, but when he succumbs to an unsettling version of religion, she takes off with a used car and little else.

She makes it to Lawson, North Carolina, where she meets Rose, a kind-hearted woman in denial about her advanced cancer. Rose takes in the younger woman and serves as a role model for motherly love. In turn, Ruth buffers the strained relationship between Rose and her worried, uptight daughter. Together, Ruth and Rose draw strengths from each other.

Tennessee author Catherine Landis subtly develops the relationship between these women at different stages of life. Ruth and Rose do the best they can amid disappointment, failed dreams, and acts of forgiveness.

NANCY DORMAN-HICKSON

Copyright Southern Progress Corporation Jul 2002
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