The Upper Room

Mama Ruby is a highly unconventional mother--a five-hundred-pound Bible-thumping African-American who buries the bodies of the men she has murdered in her own back yard. Mama's history is just as unusual. After another woman delivered a stillborn daughter, Mama Ruby miraculously brought the baby to life--and stole her, fleeing to the Everglades. As the story follows this usurper mother from the girl's birth to adulthood, one of the most bizarre, and chilling families in contemporary fiction comes to life. As daughter Maureen approaches adulthood, two conflicting forces converge: Mama's emotional dependence on her daughter and Maureen's natural desire for romance and independence. Kevin Free is so skillful that the listener will forget the narrator of this dark comedy is a man. P.R. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

October 1, 2001
Originally published in 1985, Mary Monroe's engaging debut novel, The Upper Room, features Ruby Montgomery, an obese, indomitable character who steals her best friend's baby daughter and flees to rural Florida, where she establishes herself as an almost mythical figure. The dialogue and setting are reminiscent of Zora Neale Hurston, but the story has a bizarre, violent edge la Stephen King. Fantastic and exaggerated, the novel may seem dated in its descriptions of race and sex, but it is a candid portrayal of the cold-blooded yet fascinating Mama Ruby.