Ruth is upset at Peter, but she is more upset at a Southern culture that would not let her marry someone she loved because he was of a different race.Īfter she graduates high school Ruth moves to New York City, where she meets and falls in love with her first husband, changes her name from Rachel to Ruth, and converts to Christianity. Her mother sends her to New York City where she gets an abortion, and Ruth is devastated to return home only to discover that Peter has impregnated a black girl and is marrying her. As a teenager Ruth falls in love and becomes pregnant by a local black boy named Peter. She has only one friend, Frances, but Ruth doesn’t feel comfortable confiding in her. At home she must deal with her demanding father and work in his store, while in Suffolk she must deal with an apathetic or openly anti-Semitic public. Although Mameh is loving and devoted, Tateh is cruel, emotionally abusing his entire family and sexually abusing Ruth. Tateh and Mameh, Ruth’s mother, have three children, Ruth (born Ruchel, which is Americanized to Rachel), Gladys (who goes by Dee-Dee), and Sam. They immigrate to the United States, where her father, Tateh, works as a traveling rabbi before settling down and opening his own general store in Suffolk, Virginia.

In the second timeline, told in alternating chapters, James tells his own life story, beginning in 1957, and ending with the book’s release in 1996.įollowing the narrative chronologically, the book begins in Poland where Ruth’s Orthodox Jewish parents meet and marry. In the first timeline, which spans the early 20th century up until 1957, Ruth, James McBride’s mother, tells the story of her family’s immigration to America, her childhood, and her early adulthood in New York City. The Color of Water takes place on two parallel timelines.

The color of water by james mcbride