Ruby's Spoon

November 23, 2009
Mystery, witchcraft, and a precocious young narrator enliven Pietroni's debut. In 1933, Ruby Abel Tailor is 13 years old, growing up in the town of Cradle Cross, in the heart of England's coal-dusted Black Country. Ruby lives with her grandmother, works at a chip shop, and dreams of running away. One day, a mysterious stranger arrives: elegant, white-haired Isa Fly, who has come to town to fulfill her dying father's request that she find a long-lost half-sister. Eccentric Isa quickly draws the scorn of the townspeople, especially after she and Ruby befriend the owner of the town's main industry, Blick's Button Factory. As Blick's tips into a steep financial decline, prized possessions all over town go missing, and Ruby questions Isa's motives. Ruby is one of those bright narrators whose insights into the treacheries of the adult world are heartrending, but while the dialogue is inventive and gorgeously dialectical, the pacing is off, with the middle section slowing dramatically before ramping up for a final 50-page blitz. If savored for character and atmosphere, fans of Hardy, Dickens, and, more recently, Michael Faber and Sarah Waters will find much to enjoy.