Sarah's Daughter

An interview with Hannah Storm on CBS Early Show is online at the CBS News/Early Show website -- the link is: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/07/earlyshow/leisure/books/main2766037.shtml -- and then scroll down a bit to blurb on her book with a link to the video.

Sunday, May 20

Sarah's Daughter

By Ruth Bass; Gadd Books, 390 pages, $14.95

Ruth Bass' new novel, "Sarah's Daughter," deserves a place alongside literary classics whose young heroines have overcome obstacles and prevailed in difficult times to become role models for their readers.

The story takes place in a rural New England town in the late-19th century. Rose Hibbard is 14 when her mother is killed in a freak accident; the woodpile topples and crushes her to death when she is fetching wood to stoke the stove.

When the book opens soon after the funeral, Rose is running the household and caring for her younger siblings, Charles and Abigail. Rose's father, Silas Hibbard, handles his grief by going to the hotel at night after the dairy farm chores are done and his children have gone to bed, to drown his sorrows in "the drink." His characteristic gruffness and taciturnity are aggravated by his increasing dependence on alcohol. Rose, overburdened with her new responsibilities, does not know how to respond to him. As the number of coins in the sugar bowl diminishes, her anger at her father increases.

The nature of Sarah Hibbard's death establishes the orienting theme of the novel. There is no way to rekindle the warmth she gave her family. Rose avoids going to the woodpile to get logs for the stove because it reminds of her mother's death. When she thinks or speaks of her mother, she calls her "Sarah" to distance herself from the word mother and all it conveys, and thus, stem the tide of her grief. Rose is grieving not only for the mother she adored, but for the sudden loss of her childhood and the normalcy of the household.

Silas tries to ease Rose's workload by purchasing an icebox and installing running water, but even with these "new-fangled" amenities, the family is toppling like the carelessly stacked wood that killed Sarah, because of Silas' inability to look to their deeper needs.

Bass does not analyze or probe the depths of her characters' emotions, rather she lets them unfold in the most human of ways. Rose's anger at her father evolves slowly but she never loses her concern for him. Her conflict is real, as is her changeability...often she is sad and tearful, worried about her younger sister and about getting the dinner ready on time to avoid her father's wrath, but she also feels typical adolescent joy and excitement when she is going to a square dance or shopping with her aunt or walking home from school with her friends.

Ruth Bass has a reporter's eye and ear for details and facts and is a careful observer of human behavior; Silas is the least sympathetic of the characters, but the tragedy and the guilt that haunt him give the reader sufficient emotional contact with him. The harm he does comes close to abuse but Rose has more than enough common sense and good judgment to protect her sister and brother from him.

Bass does not portray Rose as being precocious or wise beyond her years; she is a girl forced to take over a woman's role while she is on the threshold of her own young womanhood. Rose is not a tragic figure despite the difficulties she must endure. She has pluck and determination and a vivid imagination that saves her from dwelling too long on her problems. She also has devoted friends, and while the adults in her life are frequently oblivious to or out of touch with Rose's situation until it is almost too late, her friends are reliable and available.

Rose is a star student but too exhausted to stay awake through the whole school day. Fortunately, Ruthann Harty, her teacher, recognizes her as the amazing girl that she is, "a blue ribbon girl," and offers Rose a schedule that allows her to do both her school work and her domestic chores without falling behind in either. Miss Harty eventually becomes the guide that Rose needs to fulfill her dream of becoming a teacher herself despite her father's insistence "that he wasn't going to stand for no interference with the bringing up of his children" and his intention that Rose leave school to take care of the family and chores full-time.

Bass has done remarkable research in creating this story. In particular, her attention to domestic detail is meticulous. Details are what define the times we live in and "Sarah's Daughter" gives an in-depth look at social history when the post-Civil War country was, like Rose, on the threshold of changing. Subtly woven into the novel are information and instructions on everything from how to make a pie crust to how to darn a sock to how make a dress look like it has not been "stretched" to saving someone from hypothermia.

Bass's own history is woven into the novel as well; her original idea for the novel came from the stories she heard about her grandmother whose mother had died when she was a young teenager, leaving her in charge of the family and house.

More than a century has passed since Rose Hibbard had to deal with problems of a parent's alcoholism and an indifferent adult world, but they are not so different from the problems some teenagers face today. Ruth Bass has written a book memorable for its insights and its understanding of the hearts and minds of young women and the challenges they face, no matter what century they live in.