The Book of Ruth

During Ruth’s final year of high school, Miss Finch enters a nursing home. Ruth continues to visit her, though she notices and laments the loss of Miss Finch’s mental faculties. Ruth remembers her high school graduation, an occasion she shared with Matt in the spring of 1973. Having graduated at the top of his class, Matt gives a graduation speech in which he criticizes President Nixon and the Vietnam War, alienating several parents in the audience. Nevertheless, Ruth comments on how well spoken and knowledgeable he appears, despite his acne, his only perceptible flaw. Mrs. Foote’s daughter Daisy graduates, too, a feat which Ruth attributes to a teacher’s fascination with her.

After the graduation ceremony, May haughtily dismisses Mrs. Foote’s invitation to dine together in favor of joining a teacher and the families of other promising graduates. Matt is going to MIT, while one of his schoolmates, Diane Crawford, is going to Smith College. Ruth loathes the experience of going out with this group because she can tell that the people question how she and Matt could be related. Ruth admits that she knows nothing about Boston, only that it is 1,000 miles away, a distance she cannot fathom.