Ruby Pitt rejects the quite life planned for her by her adoring family and runs off with John Woodrow, a migrant worker who turns out to be a cruel, violently abusive liar. When he dies in a street brawl, Ruby takes up with Blinking Jack Stokes, a quiet, uneducated, but highly capable tenant 20 years her senior. He is as surprised as anyone when she agrees to marry him. In alternating chapters, husband and wife tell the story of their years together, and of a love that transcends differences in age, class and experience. Kaye Gibbons conjures up a vivid portrait of an unlikely but successful marriage, set against a land that connects past troubles, present loss and future hopes.
