When city friends set her up with a blind date, naive farm girl Ruby White soon realises he’s not the man for her. Instead, Ruby finds herself drawn to another young man, Arthur Jenkins, who patiently waits for the opportunity to take her in his arms to dance.

The following weekend, Ruby and Arthur go to a ball together, drive past his workplace, and talk about the war raging overseas. Arthur assures Ruby they’ll have a lovely garden in their future home.

Like so many young couples during WWII, Ruby and Arthur formalise their relationship the day before he heads overseas to serve King and country, but it’s not long before Arthur is medically discharged and sent back to Adelaide, to be reunited with his young bride.

Pianist and memoirist Anna Goldsworthy’s debut novel chronicles Ruby’s evolution as wife, mother, grandmother and carer, through the privations of the post-war era and as she navigates the rapid societal changes of the decades that follow. If, at times, Ruby finds herself contemplating the alternative path she may have taken, she remains devoted to the stoic Arthur, and quietly content with her life.

Goldsworthy’s prose is delicate, evocative and exquisite, and the minutiae of Ruby’s daily life become an exposition of what it meant to be a woman in pre-feminist Australia.

Reviewed by Maureen Eppen