“Mixing real time with past time, Blew reveals the underbelly of small-town life-secrets, betrayals, Satanic cults, and sexual abuse. But she also discovers grace and generosity driven by love, and how music may have the power both to heal and to connect. This is a stunning narrative told in vivid detail with the insights of someone who has been there. You will not be able to put it down.”-Annick Smith, writer, filmmaker, and coeditor of Wide Open: Prose, Poetry, and Photographs of the Prairie
“What makes the novel unforgettable is how Ruby Gervais rescues herself. . . . Only Mary Clearman Blew could have found the words, the songs, the friends, and the lost family that enable Ruby to survive and make a little dignity for herself along the way.”-David Huddle, author of The Story of a Million Years
“Ruby Dreams of Janis Joplin begins like a slow float down a river, and then somehow you find yourself in very big water, being driven along on dark currents of paranoia yet feeling yourself pulled toward something promising and generous and sweet.”-Kent Meyers, author of Twisted Tree
“Over decades and a sequence of empathetic, vivid, and compelling books, Mary Clearman Blew-one of our master artists-has shown Westerners enacting sometimes difficult truths about our societies and selves. Once again, she is to be thanked, and congratulated.”-William Kittredge, author of Hole in the Sky: A Memoir
