SOURCE: Parini, Jay. “Into the Nether Regions.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4521 (24 November 1989): 1313.

In the following review, Parini focuses on Hamilton's characterization in The Frogs are Still Singing, the title under which The Book of Ruth was published in Great Britain. He compares the novel's preoccupation with poverty and isolation to Carolyn Chute's Letourneau's Used Auto Parts and Susan Richards Shreve's A Country of Strangers.

Perhaps because of the obvious and painful contrast between the rich and poor of their country, American writers from Steinbeck and James T. Farrell to Raymond Carver and Bobbie Ann Mason have been drawn to the nether regions of poverty and isolation. This vein—which contrasts with the flashier school of Yuppy fiction that has had more attention recently—continues to draw younger writers, with varying results. Carolyn Chute arrived on the scene with a bestselling first novel, The Beans of Egypt, Maine, casting...