REGULAR // book club
70 British Patchwork & Quilting JULY 2019BOOK CLUB
with Arlene McLeish
‘How to Make an
American Quilt’, written in
1991 by Whitney Otto, is
the book that I’ve chosen
for this month and like
many of you I’m sure I saw
the eponymous fi lm long
before I read the book
itself. I’d naively expected
the book to be very
similar to the fi lm and
although in some ways
it is, it’s also pleasantly
diff erent in ways that I’d
not anticipated.Although the narrator is ostensibly Finn Bennett-Dodd,
there’s no real main character as such. Finn, a historian, is
working on her graduate thesis and is starting to get cold
feet about marrying her boyfriend, Sam. In order to think
more clearly, she returns to the home of her grandmother
and great-aunt in Grasse, California. For the past thirty-fi ve
years they’ve been meeting regularly with a small circle
of friends to quilt together and each of the quilting circle
decide to make Finn a wedding quilt made up of individual
panels. There isn’t really a plot and no neat conclusion; we
fi nd out very little about Finn’s own life.Each chapter is interspersed with a section entitled
‘Instructions’, although there are no quilt patterns as such.
Rather - and this is where I personally found the book to
be fascinating – seemingly random details and information
about quilt making are interspersed with historical
information pertaining to the rights of women in diff erent
eras of American history. Each of the ‘Instructions’ provides
not only context for each of the eras and experiences that
the women have lived through but can also be read as a
metaphor for each woman’s approach to and experience
of life. So the story of Anna, who is of mixed-race and
who faces discrimination and judgement throughout her
life, is prefaced by instructions for quilts of African origin
and information about the slave trade and the civil rights
movement. In contrast, the story of Sophia, resentful of the
domestic situation that has restricted her own dreams of
freedom, is prefaced by a commentary on what is ‘expected’
of a woman; the need for control and self-restraint ‘follow
your parent’s footsteps. This is what quilting is about: ... skill,
the work itself.’If the truth be told, I did end up reading a lot of extracts
from these sections out loud to my family; there was so
much that I was surprised – and horrifi ed in some cases! -
to learn.Rather than a constant narrative, this novel is more akin
to a series of short vignettes about each of the main
characters. It’s very clear that there is no set blueprint for
what makes for a successful and happy life. Instead, it is
about acceptance and tolerance. The stories are honest,
encompassing infi delity and betrayal; bitterness and grief;
an inability to commit and the worry of losing one’s own
identity. All types of relationships are explored; not just
romantic ones but sisterly and parent/child. This isn’t a
depressing read; in every example, the individual has been
able to come to terms with their own disappointments and
to forgive, not just those who have transgressed against
them but also their younger selves. It’s like a window
onto what we will all have to experience at some point;
the weight of our own histories and how best to live with
whatever decisions we’ve made in the past.I know that some critics have felt that this very disjointed
approach by Otto has resulted in an unsatisfactory
narrative but it’s certainly a very original blend of fact and
fi ction. Although each character has a chapter devoted to
their own story, they reappear as part of the narrative of
others; Constance’s relationship with a friend's husband is
revealed in her narrative to be purely platonic, yet to others
is seen as being an aff air. More often than not, their lives
are private and unknown and what links them all is their
presence in the quilting group and a sense that external
infl uences have shaped their lives along diff erent paths.If you’re expecting a cosy read with a satisfyingly neat
conclusion, then you may well be disappointed by this book,
but if you’re open to a more experimental writing style then
this novel could be for you. I found it to be much more
thought-provoking than I’d anticipated; despite the title, it
isn’t really about how to make a quilt as such but instead,
the way in which the diff erent experiences of the group are
patched together to make a strong ensemble. In much the
same way that we take pieces of cloth and sew them together
to make something much greater than the sum of its parts:
‘A quilt, though stitched together, will always be separate,
individual parts’. I found that it was an easy book to pick up
and put down, as it was divided into such short chunks.It also made me think about how much quilting and
patchwork has helped me to come to terms with some
of the decisions that I’ve made in my own life. There’s
something about the soothing repetition of sewing that
seems to lend itself to being able to calmly refl ect on what
cannot be changed but has to be lived with. Has patchwork
and quilting helped you in the same way? Do you fi nd that
when you’re making something it gives you the space we all
need at times to just think quietly?
Arlene‘HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN QUILT’
by Whitney Otto