Author(s): Ruth Pettis

Fiction.

DoP 2004 Christchurch 194pp / 22cm Violet, born at the very end of the nineteenth century, is unwanted by her mother from the beginning. Though her father loves her deeply, it is her motherâÃÂÃÂs love she craves but her father dies when she is a child, abandoning her to her motherâÃÂÃÂs cruelty. Gerald was conceived in violence, born at a home for wayward girls and despised by his adoptive father. Moving to a farm with his mother after his fatherâÃÂÃÂs death, Gerald also finds peace and freedom until the discovery of his birth certificate sends him searching for his birth mother âÃÂàViolet. In Like Small Bones, Ruth Pettis explores the frailty of humankind and our capacity for love âÃÂàthis sometimes elusive, but saving grace.