Ruby (1976) by Rosa Guy

Author Rosa Guy

1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Ruby (1976)

by Rosa Guy

515 Malcolm X Boulevard, Harlem

New York: 34/105

Harlem: 4/14

    Ruby is another YA title from 1,001 Novels: A Library of America.  This is the standard YA plot of a young woman who is trying to "get out of her bedroom" and into the wider world but faces difficulties.  Here, the narrator is the daughter of widowed West Indian immigrant of African descent, living in 70's Harlem, who falls in love with her female classmate.  Pretty daring stuff for the 1970's, and I didn't make it as a YA title while I was reading the book.   Rosa Guy is an iconic figure, the only female founder of the Harlem Writers Guild in 1950, a group that was instrumental in promoting the efforts of a generation of African American writers, including Maya Angelou. 

   This being a YA book, you don't hear much about Harlem or NYC, since Ruby, again, spends most of the book either inside her house, at school or racing around trying to dodge her controlling father.   Other than the precocious lesbian relationship, the most eye raising moment was the open use of the "N" word by a white teacher at Ruby's high school.  Hard to imagine that today!