Love Among the Ruins

by Robert Clark

A beautifully written story of love, idealism, and our recent history. Amid the crises of the summer of 1968, two teenagers become lovers. Emily is a good Catholic girl, for whom an incarnate God means joy and contentment in the life of the body. William is preoccupied, in a vague sort of way, with politics and the evils of the System. Together, impelled by physical passion and the idealistic notion that "all our life is some form of religion, and all our action some belief," they run away to create a new life in the wilderness. In their absence, their parents' predictable lives take an entirely different course, and America itself seems to lose its innocence, never to be quite the same again. Not since Alice McDermott's That Night or Scott Spencer's Endless Love has there been a novel that portrays with such immediacy and respect teenagers' first loveits intensity, finely calibrated moods, and worldly innocenceand the elusive nature of adult loveits passion and fragility, comforts and betrayals.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance, Novels

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Robert Clark is a novelist and writer of nonfiction. He received the Edgar Award for his novel Mr. White's Confession in 1999. A native of St. Paul, Minneapolis, he lives in Seattle with his wife and two children.

Clark's books touch on several genres but often return to questions centered in God: "Is there a God? Does he love us? Is he even paying attention?"

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Robert^^^Clark

Reviews

[Tracy Towley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The entire time I was reading this book, I kept wondering why I'd picked it up. I have a huge to be read pile and everything in it is there because it's either on the Syllabus of a writer / professor I admire, because it's by a favorite writer of mine or it was recommended by a friend. I knew this fell into none of those categories. It turns out I'd actually ordered the wrong book.

Luckily for me it ended up being a bit of a treat.

Love Among the Ruins begins the day Robert Kennedy was shot and ends the day Nixon was inaugurated. For the most part it is the story of high school lovers, Emily and William. Emily is a bit shy and a good sweater-wearing Catholic girl. William is the son of a politically active single mother. When William becomes terrified of being drafted, he convinces Emily to run away with him. They pack up Williams camping gear and set off for a local island.

The writing is very melancholy and romantic, without being trite or sentimental. This ends up being a very dark and politically charged book, which I was not expecting. All in all, it was a pleasant surprise and I'm glad I made the mistake, because I never would have discovered it otherwise.

I gave it 3/5 because the writing is a pretty simplistic. I think it accomplishes everything it set out to, but the characters are occasionally a bit one dimensional and their motives are a bit too neat and orderly. The focus was clearly on telling the story and not the prose style, though there were enough problems with the plot that I couldn't completely forgive the lack of depth of characters.

In summation : I would recommend this to a person who wanted an easy, yet emotionally charged read.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorite quote: “It is grasping the hard fact that time runs in only one direction, that we have already died a thousand deaths and will die a thousand more, and that there is no remedy for it but love.”

[M. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read for the PopSugar Challenge 2019

47.Two books that share the same title (1)

One could ask why I'm reading this, after getting to the not so pleasant parts where Clark thinks it necessary to write scenes where a teen boy masturbates or a teen girl in her teens is touched by her boyfriend in quite explicit detail.

Well, the writing is atrocious and the plot, through predictable, drags on forever. But I wanted two books with the same title, and this could not differ more from the book I had read earlier. Not recommendable. And to think this one is labelled under romance.

Another bonus from this book is having terrible dialogues, almost copied from movies, portraying Catholics as particularly fanatical or lukewarm, and many other fascinating tropes.
The girl is the daughter of Catholics, a lukewarm father and a pious mother. This "Catholic schoolgirls are particularly involved in sexual stuff" trope is so disgusting and overdone that I am surprised at how people keep getting away with it.

When your prose is bad, you don't "spice it up" by objectifying women and girls, you throw the draft into the nearest trashcan and keep practicing.

It's almost John Green levels of bad. Fanfiction levels of bad. Doesn't compare to its namesake: Evelyn Waugh's Love Among the Ruins: A Romance of the Near Future

[Steven Booth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Among the Ruins is a great title, because it perfectly encapsulates this book and it's themes.

It takes place not long after RFK is assassinated and the Vietnam War is being escalated. Main character William is a disillusioned teenager, not eager to make the choice of going to college or getting drafted. After growing up in a single-parent household, he sees his world as getting out of control, and seeks to remedy it by running off to the woods and pretty much living off the land. His girlfriend Emily, raised in a Catholic household, gets caught up in Will's dreams, and they run off to the woods together.

Needless to say, it causes trauma in both households, and the book is split between Will and Emily's budding relationship turning into running away to the woods, and the parent's various means of coping with having missing kids.

Love runs through everything here. There is the innocent adolescent love of the two teenagers, which inexplicably leads to their running away. Their relationship has it's summer of love, but then takes twists and turns as the days turn to fall and winter.

There is also the love of the parents. Emily's parents, Edward and Ginny have a seemingly perfect household until Ginny runs away. Losing Emily brings out feelings of betrayal, loss and longing. Ginny steels up on the outside, but falls apart on the inside, while Edward finds parts of himself he didn't know existed, and becomes increasingly attached to Jane, William's mother. While Ginny in a reminder of the pre-JFK America, the free-thinking Jane is more in tune with the 1960's, with her anti-war activism. Edward is torn between these worlds, while still looking for Emily.

There is innocent love and infatuation, lust, longing, bitterness, betrayal, loyalty and even healing and forgiveness in these pages, all amid the macro-world of the late-1960's America and the micro world of two families going through traumas. All the versions of love are paid heed here.

Clark does a beautiful job getting inside the characters and embracing their humanity. He makes you feel the youthful pangs of love and lust with Emily and William, and also the chill of reality setting in. You feel the confusion of Edward, trying to be all things to all people, trying to be center of strength, and failing and knowing he is failing. Jane and Ginny carry on with their lives because that is all they know how to do, and stopping only makes them confront the hard truths, which they don't really avoid anyway.

It is love in the ruins, all the beauty and heartbreak rolled into 336 pages.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is about existentialism and where we fit into everything, especially being a teenager in the 60s. The teenage lovers in this novel are a cross of Romeo and Juliet, Endless Love, Tristan and Isolde. Not so much as the teenagers are from warring families or the boy is in love with a trusted companion’s wife, but more in that they come together and and question everything going on at that time and what does it mean and where do they fit into it, and can they escape it. One comes from a faithful catholic family and pretty much accepts that this is God’s will. The other is raised by a single mother who is into the wrongness of the war and who is best as president, always campaigning for what is perceived to be the best for the country. During this time hot topics between these two teenagers are the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the draft for the Vietnam War. How does this all affect them as they become adults in a messed up world and how does it affect the nuclear family moving forward and, ultimately, how they can escape it all and live and love how they want to live and not under the control of society. At some point they do just this-run away from it all and be together, just them. Meanwhile, their parents are dying a slow emotional death; having not a clue as to why this has happened.

The subject matter is very intense, in my opinion. It seems so surreal that teenagers can be thinking so intellectually as these two do. I was a child of the 60s & 70s also but we didn’t know the half of what was really going on-it didn’t affect us. We didn’t question it. But the thoughts and dialogue in this novel are so though provoking. But if you’re a person who can’t concentrate on some intense topics with background noise then you need to read this where you can be alone and it’s quiet and you can really get into what everyone is saying and thinking.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book didn't really come alive for me until part 2. Up until then it was a fairly routine 'boy meets girl' story and i felt the characters were rather undeveloped.

From part 2 onwards I thought we were treated to some rather wonderful writing and the development of characters against the backdrop of loss, grief and supressed guilt. Some of the quotes and phrases are sparkling (in my opinion).

And then, the book ended in a way I didn't expect, making me reassess my view of the start of the book, that it was necessarily shallow and three dimensional because teenagers have yet to develop depth.

It troubled me afterwards as to whether the books central premise, that William and Emily would have embarked on their trip in such a naive way, given the rest of their lives ahead, and in particular that Emily would have acquiesced with so little protest, but it may be that I have forgotten being 16.

[Jennifer Steffes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Among The Ruins was a good book with a really sad ending. It also does contain sexual content in the book to where there is just enough. I would definitely recommend reading this book if you like a good challenge since it is a decent one. :)

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book starts out very slow, going on and on about a beginning love. The story gradually picks up steam. It ends with a bang. I enjoyed the time period the story is set in as these were my teenage years too.

[Marilyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the premise of this book, and the characters were well done too. But the ending was just not ok. No spoilers here, but I felt cheated out of a satisfying finish.

[Zachariah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically follows a Romeo and Juliet pipeline but the build up is chunky and long and then when everything becomes interesting they rush it all and the end 😮‍💨

[Janet Eshenroder · Rating 2 out of 5]

One and a half stars. The book’s strong point is probably description. The author seems to have worked hard to add little details and delve deep into the nuances of teenage angst. Paragraphs and pages that were carefully crafted but which seemed to drag on forever.
The book is weak on plot and character development. Yes, there is a story line but you are following two teenagers who seem to drift together, stay together because of their need to fill an empty spot in their life, run off from lives boxed in by societal expectations for a rebellious life just as boxed in with its own expectations. They eventually drift apart, without any final confrontation.
Meanwhile, the girl’s father and the boy’s mother start an affair, after drifting together because of their children’s disappearance. They also seem to be searching to fill up an empty spot and they, too, drift apart with out any major insight or confirmation.

Perhaps I am used to books that lift my expectations, of unusual or inspiring characters, twists and turns in plots, fascinating tidbits of information about some segment of career or lifestyle that I have never explored. This book was more like drifting down a wide river with no way to steer your destination. You observe small changes in the landscape, can often predict far in advance when the scenery will change, and come to shore little changed from when the journey began.
At least let the characters change. They are so passively drifting through their lives and nothing they experience seems to enlighten them, empower them, or transform their purpose in life.
Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the book’s title. It did feel more like wallowing in the shadows. I watched characters and could never bring myself to identify or care about what happened to any of them. That became the most emotionally disturbing aspect of the book.
As I kept grumbling about the first segment of the book, my husband kept asking, “Why are you still reading it?”
I always attempt to finish a book, to give a chance for the book to redeem itself. I got off the journey with little to show for the time spent, other than an appreciation of the author’s descriptive passages.
Sex scenes are included and that may help some readers. I had to lump this author with a handful of other male writers who write about what men think women think about sex. Because of this, even scenes that should have been juicy just fell flat.
I hope there is a type of reader who will identify with these characters. It doesn’t reflect my life or the lives of people I’ve stayed in touch with. Maybe it’s just me.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this love story between two teenagers in 1968 Minnesota, the summer after Robert Kennedy is shot. I was only 12 in the summer of 1968, but I can remember well the events around this time, especially the student protests against the Vietnam War. Seventeen-year-old William and 16-year-old Emily, deeply caught up in their first amorous relationship, want to survive, and simply love each other, in a world they feel is falling apart. William sees in his future two equally appalling choices, going to college or going to war. He doesn't want to do either, but wants to escape into the north woods to live his life communing with nature with his true love. He and Emily escape into the woods in early September and obviously haven't reckoned with the dangers posed by nature, notably the encroaching cold. Meanwhile, their parents have their own struggles to deal with.

[Conor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful and haunting novel by Robert Clark. Clark's prose and voice are so wonderful that I had trouble putting this book down. The story revolves around the blossoming love between two teens in 1968. As the world is being ripped apart and they find in each other an innocence and purity that the world denies them. We also watch their parents (his mother, her mother and father) navigate the shoals of that pivotal year, when all the world imploded. Clark injects his voice at different times, almost like tv actor breaking the frame and talking to the camera. This has dangers, but Clark pulls it off because he clearly grasps the mystery of love. All in all this is a wonderful, beautiful, and heartbreaking novel.

[Hillery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the summer of 1968 with the RFK assassination and the Chicago Democratic Convention as backdrops, this novel tells the story of two idealistic teenagers in Minnesota who run away to the northern part of the state to live in the woods and away from the "System". The book's first section focuses on them and their love; the book's second (and, to me, more interesting) section focuses on the parents' and their lives and how the teenagers' disappearance impacts them and whom they feel themselves to be. The book's final section returns to the teenagers and their time in the woods.

The author writes well and sparsely......no melodramatic or showy prose. Just a good read.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a hard book to review. I didn't really like it, but I enjoyed Clark's use of language. For this particular story line though, I felt that his style gave the book an emotional distance that ultimately lessened its impact on the reader. The tale is about a high school age couple in 1968, who decide to run away together to the wilderness of nearby Canada. I look forward to reading Clark's earlier psychological mysteries and see how their style holds up.

[Traci · Rating 4 out of 5]

Told in third-person omnicient with a beautiful and rather Victorian slant, Love Among the Ruins was a bit slow-going (particularly in Part 2, in which the narrative focuses on the parents as opposed to the teenagers in love) but satisfyingly sad. "Satisfyingly sad," I realize, is an odd thing to say, but even having finished it just this minute, I can see that it could only have ended one way.

[Candy]

I picked this up off of the library's valentine's day display, thinking it might appeal to my husband. I put it in the bathroom- don't know if I have hooked him yet, but I have started it! I hooked myself!
So far, it is really S L O W. Might get abandoned.
April 9, 2013. Abandoned this story which I should have liked so much. after 62 pages, I give up.

[Rilla]

Many adult readers will find the adolescent behavior underlying this tightly drawn novel to be tedious. It seems to level out as the consquences of a rash act are revealed. I was disappointed in this book because I remember In the Deep Midwinter as a stellar example of spare midwestern writing.

[Masha Vishnevsky · Rating 1 out of 5]

this is 100 percent poop to the third degree writing. That's just a few poops away from Danielle Steel.

[Kate Rohl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too nostalgic and swoony for my tastes and the sex seems tangental and unnecessary

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of slow-moving, but very interesting and with a rather unique plot.

[Jenn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Incomplete

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely heart-wrenching.

[Meaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ending was pretty predictable. The first third of the book was the most enjoyable. Pretty writing; when I finished the book I felt like I had just woken up from a dream.

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but I didn't get pulled into the characters. Felt like there was something missing

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be really deep and a harder read.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Teenage lovers run for refuge to Minnesota's north country following the riotous summer of 1968.