4. Based on what James McBride tells the reader about his mother, why do you think Ruth McBride chose to live out the rest of her life where she did?

I think that Ruth shoved much of her childhood issues under the rug so to speak. Issues of race, hate and guilt were very much part of Ruth although she chose not to deal with them for much of her adult life. Ruth, returns to Suffolk to address some of these issues and put her childhood into context. She wanted to purge many of the harmful childhood memories that lay buried within her.