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Summary
Summary
"Spinning, weaving, knitting, all part of the long tradition of women's work, skills that had survived even the efficiency of the industrial revolution. Why did people still do it?"
It's been ten months since Jack died. For his widow, Sandra, a tightly wound teacher who thinks long and hard about such questions, the months have tested her belief that she can continue her ordered life without Jack. She feels as though she's covered in ice-cold glass and will never be warm again. Knitting is the story of what happens when Sandra meets a woman who is her polar opposite on a sidewalk when they both stop to help a man in distress. While Sandra's grief has constrained her spirit, Martha -- who lost her husband years before -- appears to wear her grief lightly. Sandra's talent for the domestic arts lies in studying them; Martha is a brilliantly gifted knitter, a self-educated artist. When Sandra persuades Martha to help her mount an exhibition of retro and contemporary knitting, the two women's lives tangle, with astonishing ramifications. What begins as a professional collaboration becomes something transformative and deeply personal. Anne Bartlett weaves a story that is seamless in its exploration of healing, grace, and the search for meaning, both within oneself and in the larger community. Readers will find much to admire in Sandra's struggle to break out of her shell and much to wonder at in Martha's visionary spirit. Knitting marks the debut of a writer whose work puts her in the company of writers such as Carol Shields, Barbara Kingsolver, and Louise Erdrich.
Author Notes
Anne Bartlett spent her childhood in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia. While raising her four children, now grown, she worked as an editor, a ghostwriter, and a feature writer as well as knitting original creations for clothing designers. She recently finished a Ph.D. in creative writing at the University of Adelaide. She lives with her husband, who has been a pastor for more than twenty years (a background she has drawn on for this book), in South Australia.
Reviews (2)
Kirkus Review
An Australian first-timer connects two women's lives through the ancient art of knitting, in a brief, sweetly winning tale. Since her husband's death a year earlier, textile historian Sandra Fildes feels as if she's wearing a layer of elastic glass "holding her in and keeping everybody else out." She needs a new project, and when the loopy knitter Martha McKenzie suddenly comes into her life--they're the only two who help a collapsed man in the street--she lights on Martha to fulfill her academic dreams. Martha has quit her drudgery as an exploited knitter for a famous sweater designer and instead finds work cleaning the church, all the while knitting patterns dear to her simply because she loves to knit. Martha is poor and cheerful and generous, while Sandra lives in a big stone house with a pool; Martha befriends the recovered collapsed man, Cliff, while Sandra thinks he's seedy and a thief. But Sandra is amazed by Martha's gift at knitting and sees her as a direct line to the ancient traditions of inventive women's work, and even plans to stage an exhibition called "Texturality," a social history of the century featuring historically patterned garments knitted by the one and only Martha. Martha, however, is a perfectionist and becomes psychologically unstable when pressured--like now, as Sandra becomes increasingly manipulative and controlling of her friend. Indeed, Sandra even recognizes that she treated her dead husband in much the same way she's treating poor Martha. The story of the friendship between these two very different personalities is affecting, the snob Sandra continually foiled in her attempts to categorize Martha, who "[keeps] turning into something else" and who is indeed the more sympathetic character, with her otherness and "careless propensity for joy." At the same time, though, Bartlett's weaving in of women's inventive traditions is rather heavy and academic. Still, a spirited feminist take sure to find favor with women's book groups. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Knitting, the hot new trend, serves as an intriguing theme in Bartlett's first novel. Set in southern Australia, the story revolves around two very different women: the recently widowed Sandra, an academic interested in the history of les and women's work, and the much younger Martha, also a widow. Martha is a gifted knitter who tried knitting for a living, but the pressures to produce on demand turned her greatest joy into a mechanical duty. Now she knits as she pleases. The two women meet one day at the mall when they are the only ones to stop and help a man who has fallen. A friendship develops, and Sandra soon creates a project to showcase Martha's knitting skills and occupy her own grieving mind. The project, an exhibition of vintage and contemporary knitting, challenges both women in more ways than they could have imagined. Bartlett has created an enthralling story about the healing power of friendship, enriched by knitting details. Highly recommended for most public libraries.-Robin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
August Ever since Jacks funeral Sandra had been covered in glass. Not glass from an accident, shattered bits of windshield or the hard razor-cut edges of a plate glass window. Nothing like that. Sandra was covered in a thick layer of elastic glass that stretched over her body like another skin, holding her in and keeping everybody else out. It moved with her wherever she went, invisible under her clothes, into the shower, into bed, into the sun, and kept her cold as ice. Friends knocked on it. She could hear them, but the glass was over her eyes, too, so that everything she saw was far away, even though she knew she could reach out and touch. She was covered in ice-cold glass and would never be warm again. So when Sandra saw the gaudy envelope in the mailbox, her heart sank. She knew what it was-her invitation to the annual dinner she and a group of school friends had maintained for over thirty years. She would have to go, of course; she couldnt not go, but she dreaded it all the same. Another item on the list called First Meetings Post Jack. More hugging and caring and how-are-you-getting-on to negotiate. The first widow among them, an object of compassion, confrontation, and curiosity. How do you think shes dealing with it? Not too badly. Immersed herself in work. And what she couldnt tell them, hadnt told anyone, was that her days were as dry-eyed as a desert. She didnt know how to weep. She reluctantly tore open the envelope and propped the invitation on the mantelpiece. Over the years they had tried a vast range of restaurants. This one would require a new dress. That same afternoon Martha McKenzie walked down Muggs Hill Road, her strawberry hair glowing in the meek offering of the South Australian winter sun. She was rugged in her overcoat, and as usual she carried her three big bags: the expandable striped bag, the tapestry carpetbag, and the old brown suitcase. As she approached the corner near the bus stop something shimmering caught her attention. The shimmering was in front of a small bluestone church that Martha had passed hundreds of times but never entered. Martha was not in the habit of going to church. She was forty- seven years old and hadnt needed church yet, nor it her. Martha was decidedly uninterested in churches; the last time she had been to church she was ten years old and had bitten an old man on the hand, for good reason. She was long-sighted, but she wore her glasses now for knitting. She squinted at the shimmering. Martha liked things to be right side up and comprehensible, though some things, she knew, could not be explained. This was like a heat haze or the flummery flow of air above a gas pump on a hot day. Martha looked carefully left and right down the narrow street, then tramped across it to the church. Here she was distracted by something else. Above the steps leading up to the front porch was a heavy wooden door, cheerfully painted but firmly shut, and on the door Excerpted from Knitting: A Novel by Anne Bartlett All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
