Short-listed for the 2001 Rogers Writers’ Trust of Canada Fiction Prize and the Amazon.com/Books in Canada First Novel Prize
Lilith Boot’s life changes forever the night she drowns the flowers in her parents’ garden. Frightened by their daughter’s odd behaviour, and her recent pronouncements of psychic visions, the Boots send Lilith to a Vancouver mental hospital. It is there that she becomes pregnant, giving birth after her discharge.
Years later, Lilith uses her visions to help Toronto police find missing children. At the same time, her own daughter, Lemon, struggles to distinguish herself from her quirky mother. Searching for her identity, she sets off across the country in search of the father she has never met. In the process, both Lilith and Lemon discover that they can never escape from the past - or each other.
This debut novel introduces an astonishing new voice to the Canadian literary scene. With fresh, inspiring language, and characters who steal your heart, Elizabeth Ruth weaves together an unforgettable story of loss and landscape of memory.

Elizabeth Ruth’s novels are: Semi-Detached, Matadora, Smoke, and Ten Good Seconds of Silence. Her debut poetry collection is, This Report is Strictly Confidential. Elizabeth’s work has been recognized by the Writers’ Trust of Canada Fiction Prize, City of Toronto Book Award, Amazon.ca Best First Novel Award, and One Book One Community. CBC named her “One of the Ten Canadian Women Writers You Must Read.” Elizabeth is also the author of a novella for adult literacy learners, Love You To Death and the editor of Bent On Writing: Contemporary Queer Tales.

Find Elizabeth on Instagram at elizabethruthauthor and on her website: elizabethruth.com  

Elizabeth Ruth's profile page

• Short-listed, City of Toronto Book Award
• Short-listed, Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award
• Short-listed, Writers' Trust of Canada Fiction Prize

This is an important book for its daring, direct look at issues and people we too often confine not only in the margins of society, but in our minds as well.

The Toronto Star

a most unusual and impressive novel.

Vancouver Sun

Brilliantly crafted and filled with glorious, intriguing characters, this debut novel from Canadian author elizabeth Rutgh is a joy to the heart and soul.

The Telegram (St. John's, NF)

Ruth's debut novel strikes chords of identity, loss and memory that resonate with all of us.

Hamilton Spectator

Ruth explores the things that make us tick with an attention to detail that never completely bogs down the plot's momentum. We quickly come to root for Lilith the survivor and love the scrappy Lemon's adolescent mistakes. This first novel forecasts a unique talent.

Now Magazine

nuanced and compelling writing.

Globe and Mail

an engaging and original story.

Books in Canada

Through Lilith's relationship with her own mother and her daughter, Ruth dares to confront the fine line between a maternal love that nurtures the child and a maternal love that functions to save the mother herself. In Ten Good Seconds of Silence, Elizabeth Ruth faces the complexity of motherhood, for mothers and their children alike.

Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering