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Sufficient Grace
Ruth and her cousin Naomi live in rural Wisconsin, part of an isolated religious community. The girls’ lives are ruled by the rhythms of nature — the harsh winters, the hunting seasons, the harvesting of crops — and by their families’ beliefs. Beneath the surface of this closed, frozen world, hidden dangers lurk.
Then Ruth learns that Naomi harbours a terrible secret. She searches for solace in the mysteries of the natural world: broken fawns, migrating birds, and the strange fish deep beneath the ice. Can the girls’ prayers for deliverance be answered?
Sufficient Grace is a story of lost innocence and the unfailing bond between two young women. It is at once devastating and beautiful, and ultimately transcendent.
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Sufficient Grace
Ruth and her cousin Naomi live in rural Wisconsin, part of an isolated religious community. The girls’ lives are ruled by the rhythms of nature — the harsh winters, the hunting seasons, the harvesting of crops — and by their families’ beliefs. Beneath the surface of this closed, frozen world, hidden dangers lurk.
Then Ruth learns that Naomi harbours a terrible secret. She searches for solace in the mysteries of the natural world: broken fawns, migrating birds, and the strange fish deep beneath the ice. Can the girls’ prayers for deliverance be answered?
Sufficient Grace is a story of lost innocence and the unfailing bond between two young women. It is at once devastating and beautiful, and ultimately transcendent.
Ruth and her cousin Naomi live in rural Wisconsin, part of an isolated religious community. The girls’ lives are ruled by the rhythms of nature — the harsh winters, the hunting seasons, the harvesting of crops — and by their families’ beliefs. Beneath the surface of this closed, frozen world, hidden dangers lurk.
Then Ruth learns that Naomi harbours a terrible secret. She searches for solace in the mysteries of the natural world: broken fawns, migrating birds, and the strange fish deep beneath the ice. Can the girls’ prayers for deliverance be answered?
Sufficient Grace is a story of lost innocence and the unfailing bond between two young women. It is at once devastating and beautiful, and ultimately transcendent.
Born in rural Wisconsin, Amy Espeseth immigrated to Australia in the late 1990s and lives in Melbourne. A writer, publisher, and academic, she is the recipient of the 2007 Felix Meyer Scholarship in Literature, the 2010 QUT Postgraduate Creative Writing Prize, and the 2012 CAL Scribe Fiction Prize. Sufficient Grace won the 2009 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript.
Reading Group Guide
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
Is Ruth’s relationship to the natural world a normal response to a childhood immersed in hunting and fishing, or is it something more?
Are there aspects of the family’s religious experience that you admire or envy? What parts of their beliefs are most difficult to understand?
What makes an individual part of a family and culture? Is it blood, practice, like-mindedness, or obligation? Are family and culture choices individuals can make?
Although fraught, relationships within the family are strong. Are the friendships, love affairs, and kinships made stronger or weaker by the trials the family face?
Why is the family so wary of the secular world, including doctors? Do they have real reasons to fear people outside their faith?
Where could the girls have turned for help? What might have been a better way out of their situation? Why didn’t they ask anyone for help?
What drives Ruth to make her choice in the barn? What would have happened if she hadn’t? Does she protect or harm Naomi?
Why does Ingwald make his choice regarding Samuel? What would have happened if he hadn’t? Who is he trying to protect?
Who is ultimately responsible—legally, ethically, spiritually— for the horrific events of the novel?
What does the future hold for Ruth and Naomi? What will happen now to Reuben and the rest of the family?
Do you think that Ruth’s blending of Christianity, Native American and Norse mythology, and nature is a subversion or triumph of Christianity? Is Sufficient Grace a Christian book?
