Ruth marries happily, loses her husband to fever and is left with two small daughters, a grudging father and in-laws who would rather see her starve than help. Moving from one shabby boarding house to the next, she turns to newspaper sketches for a living. Fern tells it in short, sharp chapters that walk straight into people’s houses without ringing the bell.
A thinly veiled account of Fern’s own rise as a columnist, and a pointed early American novel about a woman earning her own money. Download the free EPUB.