PROBABLY RUBY

Dakota Ray-Hebert's voice encapsulates Ruby with a tough edge, a big laugh, an occasional sneer, and underlying grief. Ruby is Cree and Métis but was adopted as a baby by a dysfunctional white family in Western Canada. The novel moves back and forth in time as connected stories recount the lives of Ruby's birth parents, grandparents, partners, and others. The changing time frames can become confusing but Ray-Hebert deftly adjusts her performance with subtle differences between peripheral characters and the bighearted and spirited woman at the center who is determined to find her family and cultural roots. Underlying Ruby's story are deep themes--intergenerational trauma, abusive boarding schools, a foster system that ignored the needs of Indigenous children, and unwed teenagers who were forced to give up their newborns. A.B. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2022]