It isn’t often that Oprah Winfrey’s new favorite author comes to town, but Tucson will be seeing quite a bit of one later this week.
Cynthia Bond, whose recent debut novel “Ruby” hit The New York Times bestsellers list after Winfrey gave it her blessing, is scheduled to be in the Old Pueblo from Friday to Sunday.
She’ll be doing a book signing at Barnes & Noble on East Broadway and a series of talks at Pima Community College’s 27th annual Writer’s Workshop, all in May.
Winfrey compares Bond’s writing to that of literary icon Toni Morrison, winner of a 1993 Nobel Prize in literature and a 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her classic work “Beloved.”
Bond, 53, “is a powerful literary force” whose prose “penetrates through the page to the reader’s heart,” Winfrey has said.
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Bond’s mother, Zelema Harris, to whom “Ruby” is dedicated, is a nationally recognized community colleges expert who lives in Tucson. Now retired, Harris relocated here from Illinois in 2013 after a stint as Pima College’s interim leader.
The novel’s setting and some of its characters are drawn from Harris’ childhood in a tiny all-black town in East Texas in the 1940s and ’50s before the civil rights movement.
Not far from the Louisiana border, the fictional community is infused with fears of demons, conjurers and voodoo magic.
It is a town where children spend summer days watching clouds, climbing trees and catching catfish. The idyllic veneer falls away as Bond reveals what goes on behind closed doors with their parents, preachers and pimps.
The book’s title character, Ruby Bell, is introduced on the opening page as the town crazy woman. Bond tells of how she got that way and of a young man who is able to see beyond her mud-caked hair and blackened fingernails. Along the way, Bond chronicles the peccadillos and petty vanities of the townsfolk.
There’s a funeral director with a fondness for “baby-blue stretch limousines” and a busybody who has “plastic slipcovers on her mint velour sofa.” And a church leader who wheedles a discount on a flawed stainedglass window that makes it look like Jesus has a harelip.
If the scenes of child exploitation have the ring of truth to them, it’s because they’re inspired by Bond’s own experiences and those of the homeless and at-risk teens she taught writing to in Los Angeles for more than 16 years while she was working on the book.
“Writing ‘Ruby’ became my salvation,” Bond explains in a commentary at the end of the novel.
Harris said she didn’t find out until Bond was grown that her daughter had experienced sexual trauma.
“We sort of took that journey together,” Harris says of the road to emotional recovery. “She has moved beyond being a survivor and is a victor now.”
Harris knows something about surviving and overcoming. Her older sister was murdered by racists for dating a white man, she says.
Bond says if it wasn’t for her mom, the book may not have been born. Over the decade it took to write it, Harris served as a researcher, editor and agent and an endless source of encouragement.
“My mother is an amazing woman and has been an inspiration to me my whole life,” Bond says.
“I never doubted she was going to do it,” Harris says of her daughter. “She’s one of the best writers I’ve ever read.”
Neither was quite prepared, though, for the catapult ride to fame that followed when Winfrey recently chose the book for Oprah’s Book Club 2.0.
Bond expects she’ll never forget the day her iPhone rang with a call from a blocked number and she heard Winfrey’s voice “like warm honey” on the other end.
“She said ‘Hello, Cynthia? This is Oprah Winfrey,’ and I just screamed at the top of my lungs. There was a roomful of people around me and everyone turned and stared as if I’d lost my mind.”
Suddenly, Bond and her mom were being jetted around the country to photo shoots and interviews. Bond was featured in the March edition of “O” magazine and was a recent guest on Winfrey’s cable talk show “Super Soul Sunday” on the OWN Network.
One week after Winfrey named “Ruby” her favorite new novel in February, the book made the Times bestseller list. Since then Bond has been nonstop busy with interviews and appearances.
And her task isn’t over. When she finished writing the book, it was 900 pages, much too long for a single tome.
The solution was to split it into a trilogy, with “Ruby” as the opening volume. Bond’s publisher, Hogarth, has already committed to publish Part Two, likely in another few years, she says.
Meanwhile, Winfrey’s company Harpo Films has purchased the rights to turn “Ruby” into a movie, for which Bond is writing the screenplay.
For a first-time novelist, “it’s a real Cinderella story,” Bond says of the impact of Winfrey’s endorsement.
“With so many great writers out there, I can’t believe she picked me. To tell you the truth, I am still in shock.”
Bond hopes those who read the book will feel compassion for its characters and be moved to practice more compassion in their daily lives.
“The world really needs more compassion,” she said.
Contact reporter Carol Ann Alaimo at calaimo@ tucson.com or 573-4138.
