Wardini Book review: The Bookseller at the End of the World – Ruth Shaw (Allen & Unwin, $38.99)

The Bookseller at the End of the World by Ruth Shaw follows a life of light, dark and books.

Review

Ruth Shaw is the owner of two wee bookshops down in Manapouri at the edge of Fiordland National Park. If that doesn’t sound romantic enough, Ruth’s life story is as novelesque as they come.

This memoir tells Ruth’s story, interspersed with lovely tales of life around her bookshops.

Ruth’s early life was in Christchurch where she and her family lived with her father’s parents, her Gran and Pop. In an early assessment of Ruth’s character, her beloved Gran comments, “Ruthie, I know you try to be good, but you just aren’t.”

At this stage of the tale it sounds sweet, a description of a little girl full of mischief and adventure. We read of family holidays at the bach, a colourful cast of adults coming and going, and an entrepreneurial streak that saw little Ruth breeding mice and selling them to schoolmates until the nuns at her Catholic school decreed it inappropriate.

So far, so delightful, but Ruth’s life takes a much darker turn as a teenager when a sudden, violent event turns the little bundle of trouble into a traumatised young woman. Ruth describes her experiences with such a straight-up heart, pouring facts and feelings onto the page, that the reader becomes immersed, heavily involved in her story and her wellbeing.

From this point on, Ruth is on the run, never able to settle lest her thoughts catch up with her. There follows a stint in the Navy and an early romance with Lance Shaw who would, much later, become her husband.

Relationships, a life at sea, pirates, prostitutes, you name it, it’s all here. Through it all Ruth is pursued by her demons and as soon as something good starts to happen she takes off, unable to face the possibility that the good will turn bad.

The story wends and weaves until eventually we meet Ruth as she is today, proprietor of her beautiful bookshops, content and settled in Manapouri. To get there with her we go on a hell of a ride.

This is a tale of a woman who has brought love and light into many lives through the medium of books. It is also the story of a broken soul putting herself back together.

Ruth will be at Hawke’s Bay Readers Writers Festival on Sunday, October 29, in conversation with Olivia Spooner, Deborah Coddington and me, booksellers turned writers all. I can’t wait. Go to www.hbreadersandwriters.co.nz for all the details.