Drowning Ruth is a 2000 bestselling novel by Christina Schwarz, author of five novels (as of 2021).  Drowning Ruth was chosen as a selection for Oprah's Book Club in September 2000.

Plot summary 

Amanda and Mathilda are two sisters who live in rural Wisconsin. While Mathilda is petite, well-liked, pretty, and adventurous, Amanda is tall, clumsy, awkward, and serious. When Mathilda marries Carl, Amanda feels betrayed and leaves to go to nursing school. Meanwhile, Mathilda and Carl are married and living together on a small island near the family farm. They are happy there, and welcome their child, Ruth, into the world. A short time later, however, Carl begins to feel trapped, enlists in the army and is sent away to France. Mathilda is devastated and angry at his departure and decides to move back to the mainland and into the old house of her late parents. 

Amanda begins to feel agitated and upset. She's also frequently ill and has become a nervous wreck. Amanda is persuaded to take a rest from her nursing job, and travels back to the family farm to stay with her sister and niece. The three grow close, and Amanda begins to see Ruth as their child, becoming very protective of her. After living in the farm house for a while, Amanda persuades Mathilda to move back to the island. Hesitant at first, Mathilda soon agrees, and the three of them go to the island.

During the summer, it becomes apparent that Amanda is pregnant and desperate to hide the pregnancy. Mathilda agrees to adopt the child as her own and make up a story about the baby being an orphan from a "hired girl." While Amanda is pleased with this arrangement, she has to hide her pregnancy, so she cannot leave the island until after the baby is born.  

Mathilda delivers Amanda's baby girl in the house while Ruth is under the bed. Sometime in the night, Amanda changes her mind about Mathilda raising the baby and tries to leave the island by walking across the ice with the child. Ruth, who is roughly four at the time, follows Amanda out onto the ice. Mathilda runs out after them. Out on the ice, they walk over a thin patch and the ice starts to break. Ruth and Mathilda go under, while Amanda desperately tries to save them. Mathilda pushes Ruth to the surface to save her, but falls back in herself. Amanda tries desperately to pull her out, but can't do it without falling in, so Mathilda bites her sister's finger to force her to let go and leave her to drown in the freezing water. Ruth is half dead and frozen on the ice with the baby, but she is revived.

Amanda takes the baby to a woman in town who has recently had a stillborn child. She tells the woman that a hired girl had the baby and then died during childbirth. She also tells her that the baby's name is Imogene. The woman is so taken with the child, and so amazed at the situation that she doesn't notice that both Ruth and Amanda are frozen and wearing nightgowns. She also doesn't notice the blood on Amanda.

Soon after Mathilda's death, Carl returns home from the war with serious injuries, and is nursed back to health by Amanda. Ruth, traumatized, is behaving oddly and very leery of her father, whom she barely knows. The three of them live together without incident, but after a while, Carl starts to suspect that there might be more to the story of his wife's death than he has been told. As far as he knows, his wife wandered out into the night all alone and disappeared, later to be found under the ice.

Amanda begins to experience severe anxiety again. She is institutionalized in a mental hospital, and Carl is left to take care of Ruth on his own. Worried that he doesn't know enough about children, he asks his cousin Hilda to come to the farm and care for Ruth. Ruth dislikes the strict and humorless Hilda almost instantly. Hilda sees Ruth as a problem child, and seems almost to enjoy punishing her.

Later on, when they are young adults, Ruth and Imogene become friends.

Development and release

Christina Schwarz began working on the characters for Drowning Ruth in 1989, drawing inspiration from what she called a "Boo Radleyish" neighbor from her childhood, who was largely a recluse and was rumored to have shot at children who trespassed onto her property.

Having received her Master's degree from Yale University, Schwarz began teaching at a private high school. Her husband encouraged her to quit teaching and dedicate herself to her novel. Schwarz spent almost five years writing the book while working odd jobs; her husband, Benjamin Schwarz (who eventually became an Atlantic Monthly editor) financially supported them.

In 1999 she sent the first few pages of the novel accompanied by a cover letter to the Virginia Barber Agency. Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, the agent who received it, found the submission "irresistible" and asked that the rest be sent urgently. Schwarz, however, explained that she could not afford to send the entire manuscript to New York by FedEx. Deb Futter, of Doubleday also loved the book, ultimately winning the publishing rights at auction and releasing it as "hard-soft" title with Ballantine Books. At the time, Futter said the exciting thing about the book was its "utter obsessiveness." Random House Audible, a joint effort between Random House and Audible Inc., announced that Drowning Ruth would be its launch title. The foreign rights were also sold to publishers in the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. The book reportedly found support among independent booksellers, particularly in Wisconsin, where the story is set. However, the digital-only audiobook release drew complaints from these sellers, as they spoke of being left out of the market.

The book had an initial and second run of 25,000 each, and publicity director Allison Rich announced in October 2000 that an additional 750,000 copies would be sent to press.

Reception
Calling the work a "brilliantly understated psychological thriller," Publishers Weekly said that "Schwarz deftly uses first-person narration to heighten the drama. Her prose is spare but bewitching, and she juggles the speakers and time periods with the surety of a seasoned novelist." Paul Gray with Time called her work an "unusually deft and assured first novel [that] conveys a good deal more than thrills and chills." Reviewing it as a young adult novel, School Library Journal said the book is a "wonderfully constructed gothic suspense novel" and "a compelling complex tale of psychological mystery and maddeningly destructive provincial attitudes. While conceding that "it is not hard to see why Drowning Ruth became a bestseller in the United States," Lisa Allardice writing for the U.K. publication New Statesman called the story "intriguing, if predictable." Commenting on the novel's "lyrical style, its thriller-ish mystery and its sure-handed use of a risky, multiple-narrative gambit," Jerome Weeks with The Dallas Morning News says it "is an impressive achievement for a first novel," but acknowledges that "unfortunately, by the last third of the story ... there are too many coincidences, too many revelations avoided for implausible lengths of time." Similarly, Diane Simon of People said that "if your taste runs to miraculous coincidences and primal emotions, you're in good company with Ruth."

The book made the Amazon best seller list. It also spent four weeks on the New York Times'''s best seller lists, spending four weeks there and rating number three in for the year. The novel was chosen as a main selection of the Oprah Book Club, Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, Teen People, and the Mango Book Club. It was one of the fastest-selling downloads on Audible.com at that time. According to Publishers Weekly'', it was the twelfth best-selling work of fiction in the U.S. in 2000. It was the 13th bestselling novel on Apple iBooks for the week ending for the week ended December 31, 2017.

Film
Alix Taylor, the Vice President of Development at Craven/Maddalena's Dimension/Miramax at the time, brought the project to the company's attention. Miramax bought the movie rights with plans for Wes Craven to direct the project, even before the book was released. Taylor subsequently oversaw the project. In October 2000, it was announced that Marianne Maddalena would be the producer and Mark Kruger would write the screenplay.

References

2000 American novels
Novels set in Wisconsin
Doubleday (publisher) books
루스의 기억 (원제 : Drowning Ruth)은 2000년에 베스트셀러가 된 크리스티나 슈바르츠의 소설이다. 오프라의 북 클럽(Opra's Book Club)에 2000년 9월 선정되었다.

이 책은 현재 영화로 제작되고 있다.

줄거리 요약 
아만다(Amanda)와 마틸다(Mathilda)는 위스콘신 시골에 사는 두 자매이다. 그들은 매우 친밀했지만, 많이 달랐다. 마틸다는 자그마하고 예쁘고, 모험적인 반면에, 아만다는 키가 크고 뻤뻣하고, 이상했으며 엄숙했다. 마틸다가 칼과 결혼했을 때, 아만다는 마틸다에게 배신감을 느껴 간호학교로 떠났다. 그녀는 그녀의 일에 열중했고, 그녀의 삶을 아프고 다친 사람들을 위해 바쳤다. 한편, 마틸다와 칼은 결혼하여 가족의 농장에서 멀리 떨어진 작은 섬에서 함께 살았다. 그들은 그곳에서 행복했고, 루스(Ruth)를 낳았다. 하지만 얼마 뒤, 칼은 답답함을 느끼기 시작했고 군대에 자원하여 프랑스로 가게 되었다. 마틸다는 그가 떠나는 데에 충격을 받고 화나했다. 그녀는 농장으로 되돌아와서 그녀의 죽은 부모의 낡은 집에서 지냈다.

아만다는 초조하고 화가 나기 시작했다. 그녀는 언제나 아팠으며, 불안한 난파선이었다. 그녀는 휴식을 취하라는 설득을 받고 그녀의 동생과 조카와 함께 지내기 위해 가족의 농장에 돌아갔다. 그들 셋은 매우 친밀하게 자라났고, 아만다는 루스를 그들의 딸로 보기 시작했다. 그러면서 그녀는 루스에 대해 매우 보호적으로 대하기 시작했다. 잠시 동안 농장 집에서 지낸 후, 아만다는 마틸다에게 섬으로 가자고 제안했다. 처음에 그 생각은 잘 납득되지 않았지만, 마틸다는 곧 동의하고 그들 셋은 섬으로 이사를 갔다.

여름 동안, 아만다는 임신을 한 것이 명백해졌고, 그 사실을 사람들로부터 숨기기 위해 필사적이었다. 마틸다는 그 아이를 자신의 아이로 입양하는 것을 동의하고, 그 아이를 가정부로부터 태어난 고아라고 거짓 이야기를 꾸미게 된다. 아만다는 이 계획에 만족했지만 아직 그녀의 임신을 숨겨야 해서, 아기가 태어나기 전까지 섬을 떠나지 않았다. 아만다는 마침내 섬의 집에서 마틸다의 도움으로 아기를 낳게 되고, 루스는 침대 밑에서 그 소리를 듣게 된다. 어느날 밤 아만다는 마틸다가 자신의 아기를 기르게하는 데에 생각을 바꾸고, 그 섬을 아기를 안고 호수의 얼음을 지나 떠나기로 결심한다. 약 4살이었던 루스는 아만다가 얼음 위로 떠나고 있을 때 따라가게 되고, 아만다가 떠나는 걸 원치 않았다. 마틸다는 그들을 쫓아 뛰어 갔고, 루스를 되돌아 오게 하고, 아만다가 왜 떠나는 지 이유를 알려고 했다. 얼음 위에서 그들은 얇은 얼음판을 지나게 되어, 얼음이 깨지기 시작한다. 루스와 마틸다는 그 때 물에 빠지게 되며, 아만다는 필사적으로 그들을 구하려고 뛰어간다. 마틸다는 루스를 구하기 위해 얼음 표면위로 내보냈지만 그녀는 물 속에 다시 빠지게 된다. 아만다는 마틸다를 온 힘을 다해 꺼내려고 하지만, 마틸다가 그녀의 손가락을 깨물어 그녀를 놓치게 하여 마틸다는 얼음 물 속에서 빠져 죽게 된다. 루스는 꽁꽁 얼어서 반쯤 죽은 상태였지만, 아만다의 아기의 체온으로 인해 되살아 나게 되었다.

아만다는 태어난 아기를 마을에서 최근에 유산한 여성(메리 루이스)에게 건네준다. 그녀는 그 여성에게 가정부가 아이를 낳았지만, 출산 후 죽게 되었다고 말을 한다. 그녀는 또한 아이의 이름이 이모진(Imogene)이라는 말을 덧붙인다. 그 여성은 그렇게 아이를 받게 되고, 아만다과 루스가 꽁꽁 얼었고 잠옷을 입고 있는 상황을 눈치채지 못한다. 그리고 아만다에게 묻은 피를 알아채지도 못한다.

마틸다가 죽은 얼마 후, 칼은 심각한 부상을 입은 채로 전쟁으로부터 집으로 돌아오게 된다. 그리고 아만다의 간호를 받게되어 회복하게 된다. 루스는 정신적 충격을 받은 후로, 이상하게 행동하고 잘 모르는 그녀의 아버지(칼)에게 못되게 군다. 한동안 그들 셋은 아무 사고 없이 잘 지내지만, 얼마 뒤부터 칼은 아내(마틸다)의 죽음에 대해 마틸다가 알려준 이야기 뒤에 숨겨진 이야기가 있을 것이라 의심하게 된다. 그가 아는 내용은 그의 아내가 혼자 밤을 떠돌아다니다가 사라졌고, 그 후 얼음 밑에서 발견되었다는 이야기뿐이었다.

아만다는 불안과 걱정에 휩싸여 다시 심각한 문제를 보이기 시작했다. 그녀는 정신 병원에 입원되었고, 칼은 혼자서 루스를 돌보기 위해 남게 되었다. 아이들에 대해 잘 몰라 걱정이 되어서, 그는 그의 사촌인 힐다(Hilda)에게 농장에 와서 루스를 돌봐달라고 부탁한다. 루스는 즉시 힐다를 싫어하게 된다. 힐다는 엄격하며 근엄했고, 재미없는 사람이었다. 그녀는 루스를 문제아로 보았고, 루스를 체벌하는 것을 즐기는 것으로 보였다. 어느 날, 칼의 주선으로 주변의 여성들을 모아 다과회를 열고 있는 데, 예쁘게 꾸며놓은 루스가 엉망진창이 되어 돌아오자 화나간 힐다는 결국 자신의 집으로 돌아가게 된다.

2000년 소설
미국 소설
위스콘신주를 배경으로 한 소설