And instantly you're under the spell of Ruby Davidson. Self-assured, kind, always willing to take a stand for people less fortunate, at "five foot ten inches, with masses of red hair and a pompadour that increases her stature to six feet," she's also strikingly beautiful. Ruby loves her husband, adores her nephews and nieces, and more or less dutifully respects the tightly knit Jewish family into which she has married. Her life is filled with triumphs and failings, joy and sadness, lived with all possible grace, and told in a spirit of admirable and honest reflection. A full life, yes, but not an untroubled one, because Ruby also still loves her high-school sweetheart. How she comes to terms with this old, old conundrum and how it affects the lives of everyone around her shape the heart of Where Somebody Waits.
Margaret Kaufman, poet and fiction writer, is the author of five books of poetry, including letterpress limited editions published by the Gefn Press (London), The Janus Press (Vermont), and Protean Press (San Francisco). Her first full-length collection, Snake at the Wrist, was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2002. A resident of Kentfield, California, Kaufman leads poetry workshops, teaches at the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco, and edits both fiction and poetry.