has taught writers’ workshops at a number of col-
leges and writing programs. She is currently the
president of the California Writers Club San Fran-
cisco/Peninsula branch.
The protagonist of Love Made of Heart, Ruby
Lin, seems to have a perfectly fulfilling life that
many would envy. She lives in a beautiful apart-
ment in San Francisco, has an active social life,
and works as a manager of special events for a
major hotel. Ruby’s family life, however, is hardly
as balanced as her social and professional lives ap-
pear to be. After her mother’s nervous breakdown
and eventual hospitalization as a result of Ruby’s
father’s physical and verbal abuse, Ruby is forced
to confront, under the guidance of her wise and
kindly psychotherapist, the wounds buried in not
only her own past but her ancestors’ as well. De-
spite her reservations about psychoanalysis and
personal examination, Ruby embarks on a journey
of self-exploration, discovering a long family his-
tory of domestic violence and loss that stretches
back several generations from China to America.
Ruby feels herself to be caught between two en-
tirely different cultures, in one of which she is a
successful, independent American woman; in the
other she is known only as “Daughter,” the ful-
filler of family responsibilities. However, through
various artifacts of popular American culture, es-
pecially old television shows such as Bewitched, Bo-
nanza, Family Affair, and black-and-white movies,
Ruby is able to find role models for herself. While
the men on Bonanza serve as idealized models of
masculine behavior, it is the actress Joan Crawford,
Ruby’s film heroine, who shows her how to handle
romantic relationships and rid herself of the disre-
spectful, brutish men in her life.
While Ryan acknowledges that much of Love
Made of Heart is autobiographical, she insists that
Ruby Lin and the details of her life are entirely
fictional creations, and that Ruby’s tale is meant
to be a universal one capable of reaching across
cultures. Ryan’s primary concern in Love Made of
Heart is with chronicling the long-term effects of
abuse upon not only an individual’s psyche, but
upon families and whole cultures as well. Despite
the dark and weighty themes she exposes and con-
fronts throughout her novel, Ryan does not let her
story, or her protagonist, fall into a state of abso-
lute misery or despair. Instead, she provides hope
by suggesting that personal healing can be found
through self-exploration and reconciliation of past
trauma.
James R. Fleming256 Ryan, Teresa LeYung