From Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The Ruin of Everything comes from lines in two stories, “The Other Realm” and “Godspeed.” They’re both from lines in which the narrator is locating the beginning of the end of her relationship.
Both times, the narrator truly feels like a victim of a series of events, and in both stories, as in many stories in the collection, the stories themselves hint that the ruin comes from some childhood heartbreak that created her clumsy intimacy.
All along she expects such loss, and I find the question interesting: is she creating these circumstances? Is it all as inevitable as she sees it to be? I’m unsure often, but I like creating the question.
PALOMA PRESS 