text: From the beginning of Ruby's story, through all the footnotes of life, to the burying of Bunty...we live four generations of the Lennox family.  This is not your average family, people disappear, mothers leave families, children die in mysterious ways.  
  
  For me the best of all the little stories, is Ruby getting ready to be born. Atkinsons description of being literally in the womb is priceless.  
  
  Two themes seem to pervade this book...poor marriages to drunks and pregnancy out of wedlock.  In the end, Ruby learns the greatest lesson of all the women in this book...you can't run away from yourself. 
  