Arango’s debut novel stitches together a patchwork of people and events to form a believable portrait of an emerging fiber artist.
After collecting several quilts to decorate her first home as a newlywed, community college literature instructor Jo Benjamin begins attending a weekly quilting class. Having never threaded a needle before she turned 30, Jo’s first lumpy quilted placemat frustrates her. It also attracts the attention of Grace, an older quilter with a delightfully sharp wit who says, “[T]he only way to make a perfect quilt is to become a perfect person and then just sew naturally.” Thanks to Grace, introspective Jo loosens her grip on her needle and, eventually, her fiercely held secrets. The pair, along with two other friends, creates a quilt to sell at a holiday fundraiser at the California Montessori school where Jo’s husband teaches and her son attends. After the first successful year, the group creates a new quilt annually for several years, each on a different theme that Jo chooses. Through quilting, Jo finds that she’s finally able to express her deep feelings for world events and those closer to home. Her inner journey mirrors the writing in the novel—some earlier chapters feel choppy and self-absorbed, while later ones bloom with additional dialogue and longer interplay between characters. As she explores her various roles of mother, teacher, volunteer, daughter, wife and artist, Jo discovers that it’s her friendship with Grace that will allow her to uncover and possibly change her true feelings about Christmas. While some characters, such as Jo’s husband and father, seem underdeveloped, the detached, analytical narrator seems so true to life that some readers may be tempted to seek out photographs of her vividly described quilts. Crafters and artists will identify with Jo’s mixed feelings of elation and shame about her work, her fascination with color and texture and her uncertain place between the art and hobbyist worlds. Minor flaws can’t derail this surprisingly touching, but not overly sentimental, holiday story.
Pub Date: May 20, 2011
ISBN: 978-1460928943
Page Count: 262
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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