Customer Reviews

Clay's Quilt

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Vividly poetic in its description of Appalachian natural resources, heartwarming and honest in its portrayal of people linked by their love for their environs and family, Clay's Quilt is in the top three on my "re-read often" list. In this debut novel, Silas House deftly stitches a search for understanding and love with picturesque Appalachia.

Clay Sizemore is a character any reader will quickly befriend, not only because of the tragedy of losing his mother, but because Clay is a loveable young man. House's prose places the reader, like a close friend, beside Clay. Whether Clay is at work in the coal mine, walking the mountainside, or partying at the local honky-tonk, we are there with him, feeling the grit of coal dust in our eyes, smelling the air on Free Mountain, or throwing down a whiskey with a beer chaser on a Saturday night.

There is something to be said when a reader can feel for a story's rogues. Even the villains and the socially challenged characters in Clay's Quilt are people with whom a reader will identify. House takes us into their hearts, to the places that hurt, to those hidden areas where malice and evil ferment, torment and eventually explode with terrible consequences.

Life, human and natural, pulsates through the veins of this story. Long after its first reading, "Clay's Quilt" will warm the reader.

As I went back over my list of books I read last year (2001), I found that I had read over 35 novels. There were the ones I had highly anticipated (the new Robert Morgan, the latest Sue Grafton), the ones that got so much hype that I thought I should buy a copy (THE CORRECTIONS), and the ones which had been recommended to me by friends whom I knew to be good, trustworthy readers. One friend would not shut up until I read PEACE LIKE A RIVER, and I have to admit that it was a beautiful novel. But another friend was adamant that I read this debut novel, CLAY'S QUILT, and now I realize that it was the the best surprise of the year, and my favorite book of 2001. House paints his world in subtle strokes--I was endeared to the characters before I ever realized that they had began to take hold of me. I was lost in the world that this book presents...after reading it I looked all over a map of Kentucky to find a place called Free Creek, but found no evidence of its existence. If I had, I would have probably set out to tour this beautiful little town. Still, I feel as if I have been there. I feel as if I know the people in this book. I am not usually the kind of reader that lets a book take hold of me in such a way, but I don't see how anyone could refuse the very real and raw power of CLAY'S QUILT. Absolutely beautiful.

Clay's Quilt is a powerful novel lovingly and masterfully pieced from the lives of the residents of Free Creek, Kentucky. Whether working, playing, laughing, praying, driving, crying, singing, fighting, dancing, hollering, or loving, these people do it passionately and with every fiber of their beings; these people LIVE. As a result, the novel itself lives and breathes and makes a joyful noise through the voices of its people as well as through their music. House's prose is lyrical yet unsentimental, fiercely grounded in real, concrete, sensuous and intimate details of everyday life. As the novel follows Clay Sizemore's struggle to find his place in the world and to make peace with a tragic past, we witness his tender and ferocious love for family and friends, his awe and gratitude at finally finding true love with a fiddle player named Alma, and his determination to make a home and a life for himself and his new family. House's voice is true and Clay's Quilt is a book both joyous and haunting, a story whose characters stayed with me long after I finished reading.

"Clay's Quilt" sings, with a voice as mighty and true as that of the fiery honky-tonk singer, Evangeline, and as sweet and haunting as the music of the passionate and mysterious fiddler, Alma, who grace its pages. I realize that "quilt" is the defining metaphor here, but for me this book was like music - a richly textured, multi-faceted, and infinitely satisfying hymn to life at its utmost. This is an impressive first novel. The writer has created people that live and breathe, and a place so real that I wanted to get out a map of Eastern Kentucky and look it up. Clay Sizemore has only vague memories of the tragic event that brought him to his mother's sister's house on a freezing night over twenty years ago. His Aunt Easter and others in his mother's family have given him a warm, loving upbringing and he appreciates it but he's determined to find some answers about his mother and father. His concentration on the past, though, doesn't prevent him from living wholeheartedly in the present. Along with his family and friends, he loves and worships and fusses and fights with great enthusiasm. These people invest their all in life House's descriptions of the physical world are heart-stoppingly beautiful. His writing is lyrical, but not without bite. I can find very little wrong with this book's construction and pace. It starts with a mystery and builds toward resolution in an altogether satisfying way. I found it refreshing that House confines the preaching and explaining which some young writers can't seem to resist to the dialogue of his coming of age characters, where it's appropriate. Two small things about the book bothered me - the extensive use of dialect, which may be essential, but which I found distracting, and some misspelled words. One of the best things I can think of to say about any book is that it stays with you. This one does. I finished it days ago and I still think about Clay and Alma, and Dreama and Gabe and Anneth and Easter. And about Marguerite and Cake and Darry and Denzel and Evangeline and the others. Did I mention what wonderful names the people in Black Banks have? In the book, it is said of Clay's mother, Anneth, that "A person so full of life couldn't just up and die..." This book is full of life. I wish it wouldn't just up and end.

I just finished reading Clay's Quilt and I loved it. I would recommend this book to anyone. It pulled me in and made me feel like I knew these characters like they were people I saw and talked to everyday. Living in the area that this book is based on I am really proud to say this book captures the true essence of Kentucky, the family ties, the things they do. Just to wrap it all up I would have to say this is one of my favorite books of all time and once again I would recommend this book to everyone. Read it I promise you will love it to!!

Silas House is one THE most gifted Southern writers! Clay's Quilt is an amazing, heart touching story about a young coal miner putting the missing pieces of his life together in order to understand who he is and where he has come from, and what his future may hold. His mother is murdered in front of him when he is barely four years old. He is taken in by family and raised and loved deeply, yet he still feels incomplete and not sure how to change that. The story of his mother, her friends and her hopes are gently pulled together and carefully, cautiously Clay begins to get a sense of who she was and why. This in turn causes him to look deep into himself and discover what life holds for him.

Too much so-called Appalachian fiction reads as though the author became acquainted with the region by quickly driving through it on Interstate 75. I am happy to report that "Clay's Quilt" does not fall into this category. Silas House perfectly captures the speech, spirit, and soul of rural Southeastern Kentucky. At one point in the novel, a woman is described picking a sun-warmed tomato from a garden vine, biting into it, and letting the juice dribble down her chin. House's novel has much in common with a fresh, vine-ripe tomoato: It's a warm, juicy pleasure.

Without a doubt, one of my favorite books of the year. The story of Clay Sizemore coming to terms with himself and his family history is a small, intimate story, but somehow it's also very big and encompassing...like a real family, I suppose. Once I started reading it, I just could not put it down and feel as if I know each of the characters personally. In fact, I wish I could really spend time with Easter, Clay, Alma, Cake (especially Cake!), Dreama, Anneth, Gabe, Lolie, and all of the others. I really liked the use of music in the book (this was the reason I first bought it, because I had heard it was bursting to the seams with music, and I wanted to see how a writer could pull that off); it was expertly done and really added to the scenes, making them even more cinematic than House's beautiful descriptions. I'm glad it's finally out in paperback so my book club will FINALLY buy it for our April selection. This edition has a great interview in the back and questions for book clubs. This novel is poetic and haunting but never heavy-handed or long-winded. I felt like I knew the people within this book, even though I was raised in a much different place (Maryland) than its setting (Kentucky). This book is, in a word, beautiful.

I was impressed with the novel as a first attempt from Silas House, but I was a little disappointed with the predictable nature of the story. Perhaps I knew how the story would go because it takes place in a setting just a stone's throw from where I live. I liked the characters, but, I did sometimes feel that House made them and the specifics of the story a little "more Appalachian" than southeastern Kentucky really is in modern times. I suppose it bothered me that House might have been quick to give readers who aren't familiar with Kentucky exactly what they expected - coal miners, bar fights, domestic violence, teenage marriages and people living in houses they built themselves. I wished it was clear that this is not an "everyday" situation here in southeastern Kentucky.

IT WAS WONDERFUL,ALL THE LADIES IN MY BOOK CLUB LOVED IT,NOT ONLY
IS THE BOOK WONDERFUL, BUT SO IS MR HOUSE I KNOW HIS BECAUSE
HE TOOK TIME OUT HIS BUSY LIFE TO CALL US ON THE NIGHT WE HAD OUR
BOOK CLUD DINNER AND LET ME TELL YOU HIS WRITING IS JUST AS SWEET AS HE IS.