SOURCE: Berne, Suzanne. “Dreams of Love.” Belles Lettres 4, no. 1 (fall 1988): 13.

In the following review, Berne outlines the plot of The Book of Ruth, highlighting its central themes in contrast with those of Elizabeth Benedict's The Beginner's Book of Dreams.

You would miss Honey Creek, Illinois, if you were driving through “listening to your favorite song on the radio or telling a story about your neighbor.” It is one of those small, depressed towns that flick by your car window, just another collection of houses needing paint and a cow pasture. But in this town lives Ruth, a luminous spirit encased in a homely child, waiting for someone to stop and discover her.

Jane Hamilton's first novel, The Book of Ruth, is about the dream of happiness. It is also about the nightmare of deprivation. Ruth's favorite recollection is of the time her father, scooping ice cream at the...