Rue

Rue is the novel’s main protagonist. The novel describes in fragments her life on the plantation, from the age of roughly six until her twenties. In the final chapter we see her in old age. She becomes “Miss Rue” in her late teens or early twenties when her mother dies, shortly after the slaves’ emancipation. As Miss Rue, she tends to her neighbors when they are sick, and delivers their babies. She also has a reputation for witchcraft (conjure) which becomes a slur against her when disease overruns the community.

Rue is for the most part a lonely, secretive character who has difficult relationships with her mother (May Belle), her lover (Bruh Abel) and her friend (Varina). She frequently incurs May Belle’s disapproval as a child, and struggles to fill her shoes as an adult. She grows up close to yet in subjection to the slaveowner...