Kate Riley’s debut book, Ruth, is about Ruth.
Ruth grows up in an insular Christian communist community where private property is forbidden, daily routines are acts of prayer, and questioning the world around her is discouraged. Told in glimpses across her childhood, marriage, and motherhood, the novel follows Ruth as her persistent curiosity collides with a life built on faith, conformity, and holy mystery, asking what it truly means to be happy and to live a meaningful life.
It was one of the titles I wish I’d gotten around to reading last year, but missed. Now, her debut is out in paperback, so we caught up with Riley so she could answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A.
What was the first book you were obsessed with as a child?
Catalogs, and books resembling catalogs (eg. Thirteen by Remy Charlip, Adele’s Album by Claude Ponti, the Eyewitness series by Dorling Kindersley). The rest of the world may prefer a screen, but for me there remains no form more captivating than images and interpretive text arrayed in a loose grid.
What book helped you through puberty?
The Vice Magazine book of Dos and Don’ts.
What book do you wish 16-year-old you had read?
The assigned math textbook.
If you were to teach a class on Damn Good Writing, what books would make the syllabus?
On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense; The English Know Wool; Pnin; Miss Lonelyhearts; Wolf Hall.
What books helped guide you while writing your book?
The Bridge books, by Evan S. Connell, who ran so that I might trudge.
What books are on your nightstand now?
A fat stack of Susan Orleans.