Ruby and the Stone Age Diet by Martin Millar

by Martin Millar

"From now on," Ruby says to her friend, the narrator, "We’re going on the Stone Age diet. It means we only eat the sort of healthy things our ancestors would have eaten. Raw grains and fruits and stuff like that. That’s what our bodies are made for." An admirable plan, but Ruby never eats, and the narrator’s attention span doesn’t lend itself to routine. He’s too busy pining for his ex-girlfriend Cis, who broke up with him and left him with self-pity and a an Aphrodite Cactus that, when it flowers, is supposed to seal the love of the giver to the receiver, according to Ruby. Ruby, who never wears any shoes (even in the dead of winter). Though lovelorn and lonely, the narrator’s life is rich with myth, demons, werewolves, gods and goddesses; everything is imbued with a spirit. There’s Helena, goddess of electric guitar players; Ascanazl, an ancient and powerful Inca spirit who looks after lonely people; Shumash the sun god; the war and sexuality goddess Astarte; the muse Clio. In fact the only thing stronger and more sustaining than the narrator’s fantasy life is his friendship with Ruby—the kind of friendship a body is made for.

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Humor, Paranormal, Music, Contemporary, Novels

Paperback

First published July 20, 1989

About the author

Martin Millar is a critically acclaimed Scottish writer from Glasgow, now resident in London. He also writes the Thraxas series of fantasy novels under the pseudonym Martin Scott.

The novels he writes as Martin Millar dwell on urban decay and British sub-cultures, and the impact this has on a range of characters, both realistic and supernatural. There are elements of magical realism, and the feeling that the boundary between real life and the supernatural is not very thick. Most of them are set in Brixton, Millar's one-time place of residence. Many are at least semi-autobiographical, and Love and Peace with Melody Paradise and Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me both feature Millar himself as a character.

As Martin Scott his Thraxas novels are a fusion of traditional high fantasy and pulp noir thrillers.

In 2000, he won the World Fantasy Award for best novel for Thraxas.

Reviews

[Mariel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was so depressed after finishing this book that I could not sleep. I feel sorry for whoever wrote the book blurb for the new edition. A great tale of beautiful saving powers of friendship it is definitely not. It'd be great if one could reach into a story and make things less sad. I felt abandoned. That blurb is brutalizing and misleading. Although, if I could make things better and save a fictional character, it probably wouldn't be this one. The narrator wasn't dear to my heart. He lets things happen and sits and feels bad about it. I'm just as good at sitting around and feeling bad. I think I'm less depressing at it doing that than he is! That's saying something. At the end of the day I don't know much about him that meant much to me. It's funny and I laughed some and then he's all alone and I felt bad. I know they are not going to reach out and save me.

We have that in common, the sitting around and feeling bad. I read this book because I was feeling depressed and wanted something else to think about. Big fat joke on me again. Some people are bad for each other and this book was bad for me.

I shouldn't read books based on my moods...

I don't want a friend like Ruby.

Martin Millar is one of my favorite writers. I was so happy when Curse of the Wolf Girl came out that I did a little dance in the book shop and hugged the book. Books are my friends. Just not this one.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is perhaps the characteristic Martin Millar tale: it stars (and is narrated by) a young man with a tenuous grasp on reality and chronology who has just lost his girlfriend, and whose friend—and squatting buddy—Ruby occasionally likes to slip LSD in his tea, regale him with stories of a lonely werewolf girl, and swear off food for weeks at a time. In Ruby and the Stone-age Diet, Millar has assembled a fractured mosaic of fact, near-fact, fancy and myth that confuses and delights in equal measure. Definitely a trip.

[Tiffani · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've generally really enjoyed Martin Millar as an author, my favorites of his being The Good Fairies of New York and Lonely Werewolf Girl. This one, was not my favorite. It was a super short read but it took me awhile to get through. I had difficulty accepting the characters in the book as actual people and not figments of some untold character's imagination. There were other parts that were vile without any real need for them to be. Still planning on reading more from him but this was not my favorite.

[Ellen-Arwen Tristram · Rating 1 out of 5]

Um. This felt like mindless drivel to me. But that seems so unfair.

It's meant to be humorous - but I just didn't find it funny. Or witty. Or anything really, apart from bizarre and irritating. You know how you go through a period when you're 13-14 and random is really "cool," so you go round saying "random" things all the time, which are actually banal and make you look like a fool? That's what this book felt like.

I obviously missed the point. Sorry everybody.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

Almost put this book down after the first page annoyed me mightily, but it's a short book so I kept going and am glad I did. Our narrator's style is odd and choppy, and he immediately seems a bit off, a bit unable to fend for himself, and not in a way that made me particularly excited to find out more about him, but he and his fecklessness grew on me, as did Ruby's lonely-werewolf-girl stories.

[Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

The greatest book I've read in years: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-83...

[Kitty Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was not at all what I was expecting and as it is one of the strangest books I have ever read this is not surprising.The two main characters Ruby and the narrator inhabit a squat and live precariously on the edge of starvation while grappling with their distorted perceptions of reality.Odd gods and goddesses and bad spirits appear and disappear throughout the story lending a gentle whimsy to this astoundingly unusual book.

"Ruby and the Stone Age Diet" is a charming and surreal ,meandering flow of consciousness narrated by an unusual, nameless character that drifts, stumbles and falls through his life in various emotional states ranging from being childishly pleased to utterly despairing,pleasantly surprised or dangerously deranged . The narration is mixed with snippets from a story written by the narrators best friend Ruby, about a werewolf named Cynthia who can't help eating people. However this book will not appeal to everyone.

Although I was somewhat startled by an unusually and slightly surprising graphic sex scene ,after a cup of tea and a deep breath I was able to resume reading and to my enduring surprise ,not only enjoyed the book but became fond of it. By the time I had reached the last page I wanted to own my own copy.

[Elisabeth Ståhl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Det här är en jäkligt knarkig bok, tempot är skyhögt och man kastas mellan olika verkligheter. För allt som händer är verkligt för vår huvudperson. Han bor i olika squats tillsammans med Ruby, hon skriver lite om Cynthia the werewolf och han åker iväg med rymdskepp. De äter knappt något och alla knarkar lite hela tiden. Det är slut med flickvännen Cis men om kaktusen blommar betyder det att hon kommer tillbaka till honom. Under tiden behöver de en trummis till bandet, annars kan de inte spela låten han skrivit till Cis, som kommer att få henne att älska honom oerhört.
Det är absurt, kladdigt och ibland lite eländigt. Men det är också en skön resa, så luta dig tillbaka och häng på.
Jag skulle vilja ha en överblick över de olika gudarna som dyker upp i den här boken, guden för elektriska gitarrer som är roligare än guden över akustiska gitarrer och så vidare.
Allt är helt logiskt i boken.
Men när han varit i rymden och Ruby kommenterar hans berättelser så förnekar han allt, han har aldrig sagt någonting sånt...

[Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll be honest, I chose this book based first on size (I wanted something to fit in my bag) and then the title and cover. So yes, I did judge this book by its cover. That said, I quite enjoyed the weird winding path this book took. Trying to describe this in shorthand I called it "Adrian Mole, the Trainspotting years" and I don't think there's much I can say to top that. It's a pretty quick read and the cover includes praise from Neil Gaiman in case you don't wanna take my word for it.

[Johanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Martin Millar is one of my favourite authors, but I had never read this early book.

It's a sheer delight, capturing perfectly the sketchy loneliness of squat living in the 80s. It's funny and moving, and also clearly contains the inspiration for the later werewolf books.

And it only took me two days to read!

Highly recommended.

[Caroline Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surreal and slightly non linear story. It's a marvel that it was ever published. I think when the narrator mentions his tea was spiked with LSD early on, the baffled reader should presume that nearly every mention of a cup of tea is a spiked one. Not at all about Ruby's stone age diet, though it really tickles me that a bonkers character from 1989 invented the paleo diet.

[WITCHCRAFT · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always thought I had a pretty bad case of daydreaming and mind-wandering. The main character in this book it real bad though. It's a terminal case, I think.

[Melissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wildly disappointed.

[Zoë Danielle · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Some people do easy jobs and earn huge amounts of money. I do dreadful jobs and am always poorly paid. I am not quite sure why this is. Maybe I didn’t pay enough attention at school."

So when I was picking up Serendipity Market at the library based on its cover, I also picked up Ruby and the Stone Age Diet by Martin Millar without reading the back cover- it mostly was covered with a barcode anyway. And I mean- doesn't it look cool? Unfortunately the book doesn't live up to its cover, or even its title for that matter which is only barely connected to the story Millar tells. The book is the story of best friends Ruby and the unnamed narrator, who live by squatting in uninhabited houses in London. The narrator's girlfriend has just left him, but has gift him a cactus which Ruby says is an Aphrodite Cactus which will cause his ex to fall back in love with him when it blossoms. Unfortunately, months go by and it just won't blossom. In the meantime, there is lots to keep Ruby and the narrator busy including a variety of random jobs, eclectic friends, and adventures that may or may not actually be happening.

The book is written in simple sentences and a stream of consciousness type of writing, where you don't always know what is true and what is a figment of the narrator's imagination. However the tone and style of writing wasn't the problem, the actual story was. There were some extremely graphic scenes that I did not think added anything to the book and just made me feel nauseous. My favourite parts of Ruby and the Stone Age Diet were definitely the mini-story within it, which is the story of the werewolf who can't stop eating nice people that Ruby is writing; I think it would have made a nice short story. Everything else in the book, I can live without. Ruby and the Stone Age Diet is simply pointless and it even though it is fairly short it dragged on for far longer than I could have possibly thought. I honestly wonder if Millar even reread this book after writing it, and I am not sure what inspired Soft Skull Press to publish it in North American two decades after it was first printed in the UK, but it was definitely not a choice I commend. Admittedly, I am intrigued enough by Millar though I may be willing to try something else he's written in the future, I'll just be doing a bit more research before I pick up another one of his books in the future.

On the bright side, I think I have finally learned my lesson- stop judging library books by their covers. *

[Leticia Vega · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, so this story didn't put a smile on face like "The Good Fairies of New York" or like the fabulous "Lux the Poet". This story was published like way way way back when, and has only recently been republished or at least in the US republished now in light of Martin Millar's popularity. That being said, I don't regret buying the book or reading it.

This story didn't have the level of humor or sophistication that his later works have. But then again, I think that in this story we can see the birth of elements that would later become purely and charmingly Martin Millar's trademark.

Nonetheless, I did enjoy it and it did have it's "your laughing and you know you shouldn't be but you can't help it" moments. The end was anti-climatic. Really, it was 'flat'.

In this story no one dies and there's no great battle. We're really just watching a flaud guy go through the motions of his life. The story ends quietly with our nameless protagonist having a steady job and a proper place to live. However, I admit that the journey (the tale) into this short period of the protagonist's life was compelling and he was charming in only the way that Martin Millar's characters are.

This book will definitely stay on my bookshelf for another read, and when I do reread it, at that time, you'll have to ask me what I thought of it on a second read.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 2 out of 5]

The simple sentences of a young, broke man's stream of consciousness as he hovers about London or a similar dreary city of the eighties, living in squats or cheap flats, working temp jobs, and hanging out with his friend Ruby.
His girlfriend leaves him, but gives him a cactus. He's abducted by aliens, he says. Ruby produces excerpts from her story about the werewolf girl. They see a friend, get another job, try to get a band going.
Craziness, really, as the unreliable narrator spins the tales of events until it is unclear whether they were real or not; whether Ruby and the people he mentions are real. The friends, events and stories start bleeding into each other, and, all though I read the whole thing and liked a couple bits, I do not enjoy these kinds of stories.
Verse. Chorus. Verse. That's what I like.

I'm boring.

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

SERIOUSLY, in the wake of the law criminalising squatters in residential buildings, you should read this quick, sad book from the late 80s "about" (as far as it's about anything) squatting in brixton under a tory government.
it's quick and strange and mixes "real" events and events that the characters make up, and sometimes things happen that the characters then say didn't happen. there are hallucinations and wishes that become real for a little bit. and there are terrible jobs and there's the dole and strikes and squats.
and there's a hreatbreaking story about a werewolf in here too and really it's a great meditation on storytelling & life & love. go for it.

[Dawn Vogel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I barely made it to the halfway point in this book before I had to put it down and walk away. I'm all for weird books and writing techniques, but this one was just too over the top for me. I'm not sure if there is ever a coherent plot, because the lack of a coherent plot by halfway through was what finally convinced me to put the book down.

I loved Good Fairies of New York, and I'm looking forward to finally reading Lonely Werewolf Girl, but I just couldn't get into this particular Millar book, no matter how much I wanted to.

[Tempest · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it turned out to be an interesting read, I think I went into this book the wrong way. I was expecting a linear story, with rising and falling action. While this book does have some semblance of a plot, it is more the drifting experiences of the main character. It is a story both surreal and mundane, where fantasy sometimes bleeds into reality, and is not always noticed by the characters. There are stories within stories. A good read if one is looking for a drifty book full of occurrences, but no connections. Not necessarily a bad thing, but one needs to be in the mood for it.

[Littoface · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a remarkably strange book! Meet Ruby through the eyes of an unnamed protagonist, if he can stop hallucinating about alien abductions, goddesses in his bed, and robot astronauts for long enough, that is. Ruby who always walks barefoot and wears nothing but a violet dress and sunglasses. Ruby who is sensible in all things (except maybe boyfriend choice). Ruby the dreamer. Underneath a strange gritty exterior, this book is about the best kind of friendship, the kind where you can help your friend fit her diaphragm right while discussing poetry and werewolves.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite book by Millar. There is pain underlining all of Millars characters masked by the outrageous situations they find themselves in. The narrator finds himself in any world as strange as other Millar characters, but it is clear they are the illusions concocted for coping. This is a story that reminds us that the seemingly insignificant have lives and feelings that are just as human as what current society deems acceptable. Society tends to kill our humanity.

[CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK PHD · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would say that Ruby is my favorite of Miller's books that I've read. It's unpleasant and sad and depressing, but it's all those things in a way that feels real. It feels like Mark is telling us all this first hand, like an actual diary. There's nothing fun or "free" about living in poverty of near homelessness. It's awful and it hurts your very soul, not unlike the miserable people in the story who temporarily escape their situations trough delusions of varying degrees. It's real.

[Kyle · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first book of Millar's work that I've dabbled in and felt the characters lacked enough development to ultimately render them inconsequential, the story without much flow. Millar does a fine job of capturing the voice of the narrator, however. I would still give some of this other work a chance, though.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ummm, well....that was strange.

A strange stream of consciousness about squatting, pining for the lover that's left you, gods and goddesses, weightlifting, werewolves, finding a drummer for your band, cactuses, hallucinations, and some other odds and sods.

Still recognisably Millar, but left me a little perplexed and more sad and melancholic than with the usual grin on my face.

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yikes! Impossible to anticipate, this book takes the rambling narrator thru an aimless, poverty stricken London of the homeless and jobless, with childlike naievety and amusing jaunts into the imaginary world of werewolves, goddesses and alien abductions. I found this very amusing, and would gladly read more from this author, who is one of Neil Gaimon's favorites.

[Victor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite of Millar's work -- that would be "Good Fairies of New York" or "Lonely Werewolf Girl" -- but I have to admit, Millar always has a unique turn of phrase and a reading style you can't help but get immersed in.

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Millar's grasp of the foibles of urban youth alt-punk-like existences is fabulous, and stories just silly enough for us to pretend that we haven't been these people. Entertaining, and just a wee bit poignant.

[Kyrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure if it was cobbled together from notes for his other books or a drug-induced blog. It was strange. At least one bit I could have done without reading entirely. Even so, Millar can make me laugh.

[Steph · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite a recommendation from Neil Gaiman on the front cover this book was generally appalling. The guy is off with the pixies and the book is written with an extreme case of ADD nothing is developed at all.

[Matthew Nadelhaft · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contains many of Millar's trademark obsessions - squatters in Brixton, broken hearts, wild sex, drugs and failed bands. Funny, imaginative, and heartbreaking. The prose, like that of a YA book, makes the painful, adult confusions and anxieties even more poignant. My favourite Millar yet.