
The Little Way of Ruthie Leming
A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life
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Narrated by:
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Rod Dreher
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By:
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Rod Dreher
About this listen
The Little Way of Ruthie Leming follows Rod Dreher, a Philadelphia journalist, back to his hometown of St. Francisville, Louisiana (pop. 1,700) in the wake of his younger sister Ruthie's death. When she was diagnosed at age 40 with a virulent form of cancer in 2010, Dreher was moved by the way the community he had left behind rallied around his dying sister, a schoolteacher. He was also struck by the grace and courage with which his sister dealt with the disease that eventually took her life. In Louisiana for Ruthie's funeral in the fall of 2011, Dreher began to wonder whether the ordinary life Ruthie led in their country town was in fact a path of hidden grandeur, even spiritual greatness, concealed within the modest life of a mother and teacher. In order to explore this revelation, Dreher and his wife decided to leave Philadelphia, move home to help with family responsibilities and have their three children grow up amidst the rituals that had defined his family for five generations - Mardi Gras, L.S.U. football games, and deer hunting.
As David Brooks poignantly described Dreher's journey homeward in a recent New York Times column, Dreher and his wife Julie "decided to accept the limitations of small-town life in exchange for the privilege of being part of a community."
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Faulkner's As I Lay Dying review
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The rest of the book though felt forced and inauthentic. The whole thing tried to idolize the author's sister while leaving the reader with a sense that she really wasn't that great after all. She had long standing problems with the author that she refused to resolve, she never really understood her brother, and her abject refusal to face the possibility of her death left her family (and herself) totally unprepared to face it in the end. The author claims that this wasn't cowardice but his justification doesn't sell, and even his telling of the story leaves the reader feeling that the sister, while managing to endure great suffering with a smile, was too immature to face what truly needed to be done and left others to suffer for the result.
The result of that feeling inauthentic was to detract meaningfully from the author's final perspective shift on small town living. He had thoughtful discussions of what it means to put down roots and build real connections that were interesting and thought provoking to read, but he left unresolved so many of the issues he'd set up earlier in the book about why he'd left home in the first place.
This all leaves you with a sense that the author moved home to build roots, and did so because he'd reached a point where wanting that outweighed the meaningful problems he and his family might face by living there. It did not solve or really even address any of those problems, and the final pages of the book even discussed how unresolved some of those issues with his sister were. The author leaves them unresolved in the absence of alternative choices but the reader is left feeling like the author's sister was rather petty and small minded with her own brother.
As someone who wanted this book's message to resonate, this was a deeply unsatisfying result. I agree with large piece of his premise but I wish he'd executed it in a way that made you feel like the characters were likable instead of just inflexible, ignorant, or immature.
Wanted to like this so much. Very mixed results...
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Simple, beautiful telling of his younger sister’s life and impact
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Solid 4 star book, 5 star performance
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Would you listen to The Little Way of Ruthie Leming again? Why?
Yes. The insights into the essential and important elements of life worth bear repeating.Who was your favorite character and why?
Rod. His transition from escapee to returning home was remarkable in our day and age.What does Rod Dreher bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
The voice reading is amazing, placing you in the small Louisiana community of Star Hill in a way simply reading could not do.Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Definitely made me cry, and also made me laugh. Ruthie's life was a profound expression of the lives we ought all to strive for while we can.Excellent
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Plowing Through
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Thank you for the view and your heart.
Remarkable depth of one life & family
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Simply Wonderful
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What made the experience of listening to The Little Way of Ruthie Leming the most enjoyable?
This was very moving and thought-provoking. It made me ponder how, in my own life, I take love, family, neighbors and friends for granted. Definitely worth a listen.So beautiful!
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Biography junkie
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