Ruth Bass

 

A new novel inspired by

my years as police and court reporter for

The Berkshire Eagle

 

available on Amazon, at The Bookstore in Lenox, 

Shaker Mill Books in West Stockbridge

 

or from my shipping department at ruthbass92@yahoo.com

A reviewer says ...

"Veteran, prize-winning journalist Ruth Bass has published a surprising and lively page-turning fifth novel,

"The Triangle, A Tale of Love and Death ...

a brisk and colorful story of one woman, two older men and plenty of fireworks ...

a thoroughly engaging story with a cast of characters who struggle to make ends meet

in a small town where it seems that absolutely everyone intersects

over beers served by Frankie at the neighborhood bar."

--Author and playwright Carolyn Brancato

 

 

The Triangle

 

        ........Stanley was gone when Sylvia woke the next morning, but she knew he'd been there long after midnight. She pushed back the covers and swung her feet to the floor. Her stomach growled, and she realized she'd had very little to eat since lunch yesterday, except for that rather dry burger. And they'd had a couple of shots from her last bottle of rye before he'd picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. He really was strong for an old guy.  She liked that.

 

        In her kitchen, she started a pot of coffee and opened the fridge to get the milk. A folded slip of paper caught her eye, and she pulled it out. When she opened it, a $5 bill fell to the floor, and she read, "You are the best," in Stanley's scrawl. She started to laugh. The fiver was like a tip, not a fee. Almost enough for a cheap bottle of wine, not near enough to make her feel like a whore. Which she wasn't. Just a woman with two boyfriends who gave her things. Still, she wasn't sure she'd bring either of them home to mother, if there had been a home or a mother. She could see her father's eyebrows go up and her mother's lips pull into a thin line at the very sight of Gino. Well, Mum and  Pa were both gone, and she lived her life her way these days.

 

        She popped a slice of bread in the toaster and pulled out the orange juice. Her throat felt tickly, and she hoped it was just from too much alcohol, not the start of a bug. Gino would be back in town today, and he could be at her door any minute. He liked to watch TV with her as close as he could get her while those fakers on the screen supposedly wrestled. He loved watching them, so she went along, picking someone to win and occasionally cheering a move. But it was ridiculous, nothing like the fun of her high school's wrestling team. Those tangles were real. And pretty sexy, she had thought at the time. She never did get to date one of those wrestlers, but she would have liked to. No fat or wrinkles on them. And so toned they could turn themselves into a pretzel. Real hunks.

 

        She sighed and sipped her coffee. The toast popped up, and she slathered a layer of peanut butter on it, finished her orange juice and drained the coffee mug. After rinsing her dishes, she headed for the shower and stopped on her way to make up the bed, pulling the sheets tight and checking to make certain they were unstained from the previous night's adventures. She locked her door before taking a long, warm shower and was just wrapping herself in an oversized towel when she heard a loud knock.

 

        A second knock and then a third one quickly followed.

 

        "Damn," she said. "He's already back."

 

        "Sylvia," a harsh voice growled on the other side of the door.  "You in there or not?" 

 

NOW YOU'VE MET SYLVIA ...

 

And she, along with her friends, savory and not so, she's the center of the triangle.

 For more, try The Bookstore in Lenox or Shaker Mill Books in West Stockbridge

 or, if you must, trusty Amazon.

 And, as always, you can go to ruthbass92@yahoo.com and order one, signed and

 sent by the regular shipping and handling department in Richmond -- me. 

 

AND PERHAPS YOU'D LIKE TO MEET STANLEY, BUGSIE, PATSY AND FRANKIE ...

GINO? NOT SO MUCH

 

Send an email order to ruthbass92@yahoo.com, and they'll be on the way to you.

 

Judith Viorst -- author, poet and creator of Alexander's dreadful day --

calls it 'gritty' and 'a can't-put-down plot'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's Out!

 

"Sarah Meets Silas" made its debut in December 2021. A prequel to "Sarah's Daughter," it is a flashback for the trilogy that told the story of Rose Hibbard -- "Sarah's Daughter," "Rose" and "A Silver Moon for Rose." Set in the second half of the 19th century, the new book tells how Sarah and Silas met when he came upon her sitting on a rock at the local fair -- and sobbing. He loaned her his handkerchief ... and the tale began.

 

It's wonderful to be enthusiastically praised by poet and children's book author Judith Viorst again ... Judy has steadfastly assured me, amid the usual author doubts, that these characters are real. 

 

Distribution is always tough, especially for a self-published book, but the book is  available at The Bookstore, Lenox; Shaker Mill Books, West Stockbridge -- and, both in print and as ebook, on Amazon. If you need any or all of the three original books, they're available from me, individually at $15 apiece or all three for $35, plus a couple of dollars for shipping.

 

Life up to now, it says at the top of all this. Well, it's good. And I've moved on, into a new book, moving up a century into the 20th.

E mail ruthbass92@yahoo.com, and we'll get the four part story of Rose to you. For the trilogy, it's a bargain: $50 plus shipping ...  for all four, it's $70 (and shipping, about $10)

 

The Eagle column continues every week, and a fifth novel is newly published. During the pandemic, once I was in gear, it was a challenge to go from "Sarah Meets Silas" to the as-yet unfinished book. And both relieved the tedium of isolation!

Who knew that I could write a book? The teen career guide of long ago doesn't count -- that was non-fiction.
My favorites for reading were always fiction, my career as a journalist was solidly based on fact --fact after fact after fact.
Then I left my job as Sunday editor of The Berkshire Eagle, did a short stint as editor of a feature magazine that was part of a newspaper in New York State and had lots of thinking time during the 30 minutes or more it took me to get there and back again.
As these things do, a kernel of knowledge about my grandmother's teen years kept nudging me. The brain is a coordinator, so thoughts of my former Girl Scouts frequently ran their own ribbon through the picture. Grandma had a hard time, something I didn't know when we were picking lady slippers (protected now!), identifying bloodroot, going blueberrying or just reading away the Connecticut River Valley humidity on her huge front porch.

It was my father's "sort of" biography that told me she was required to run a New England farmhouse, bring up a brother and sister and cope with her increasingly alcoholic father when she was in her early teens. Her mother had died of pneumonia and there she was, a more than bright student who wanted to be in school and a child suddenly carrying an adult life on her shoulders. I knew Grandma had taught school, so I figured she managed to juggle all the balls in her life. I also knew her as a kind and cheerful grandparent, willing to see shoot-'em-up movies with me and able to walk the two miles to town and back so we could have our movie/dinner time
together. She had surmounted all kinds of problems, some of which my Girl Scouts had. And then the thoughts converged: Years go by, times supposedly change, times really don't. And humans don't change a whole lot either. I started my road to abandoning fact and welcoming fiction. With a dearth of information, I fictionalized my grandmother. And it turned out to be a compelling adventure.

The result, published in 2007, was "Sarah's Daughter." Grandma was, indeed, Sarah's daughter, named Rosa Adelaide. I named my heroine Rose and it didn't take long for Miss Rose to come alive in my head and drive my fingers over the computer keyboard in our cellar office.

Two main events in the book are based on fact: Grandma did go to school at the age of three, somewhat by chance; and she did make a momentous decision about her little sister when she realized that something had to be done in the home situation and that she was the one who had to do it.

"Sarah's Daughter" was easily followed by "Rose," in which many of the original characters begin to tell more of their own stories. In both books, the late 1800s in rural New England are accurately portrayed as a result of plenty of research -- that's when the
journalism side showed up with considerable strength -- and recollections of how my grandparents lived when I was very young. She always had the wood stove in the kitchen, she and my grandfather were frugal people, members of the Grange, hard-working.
Their lives as adults were not that far removed from the world they grew up in from 1887 into the 20th century. "Rose" was published in 2010; "A Silver Moon for Rose" in 2016.

Stay tuned.