The Book of Ruth
by Frank Lentricchia

Description

Ruth is not exactly a conventional sequel to his novel Lucchesi and the Whale. Lentricchia has included two characters from the first book—the vaguely autobiographical protagonist, writer Thomas Lucchesi, and Ruth Cohen, who appeared briefly as a flight attendant in a dream sequence in Lucchesi, but who now, as a photographer and the writer’s wife, shares narration duties; otherwise the book takes off in new directions.

Interlacing the narrative with flashbacks, the story follows the couple from Utica, New York (Lentricchia’s hometown), to secluded “Ninth Lake” in upstate New York, and eventually to Baghdad. Where Lucchesi was an abstract musing—equal parts novel and lit crit focusing heavily on the writer’s own experience of Moby-Dick—Ruth is more plot driven.