The Lost Quilter: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel (Elm Creek Quilts Novels) [Hardcover]

Jennifer Chiaverini (Author)

Book Description

Series: Elm Creek Quilts Novels | Publication Date: March 31, 2009

Master Quilter Sylvia Bergstrom Compson treasures an antique quilt called by three names -- Birds in the Air, after its pattern; the Runaway Quilt, after the woman who sewed it; and the Elm Creek Quilt, after the place to which its maker longed to return. That quilter was Joanna, a fugitive slave who traveled by the Underground Railroad to reach safe haven in 1859 at Elm Creek Farm.

Though Joanna's freedom proved short-lived -- she was forcibly returned by slave catchers to Josiah Chester's plantation in Virginia -- she left the Bergstrom family a most precious gift, her son. Hans and Anneke Bergstrom, along with maiden aunt Gerda, raised the boy as their own, and the secret of his identity died with their generation. Now it falls to Sylvia -- drawing upon Gerda's diary and Joanna's quilt -- to connect Joanna's past to present-day Elm Creek Manor.

Just as Joanna could not have foreseen that, generations later, her quilt would become the subject of so much speculation and wonder, Sylvia and her friends never could have imagined the events Joanna witnessed in her lifetime. Punished for her escape by being sold off to her master's brother in Edisto Island, South Carolina, Joanna grieves over the loss of her son and resolves to run again, to reunite with him someday in the free North. Farther south than she has ever been, she nevertheless finds allies, friends, and even love in the slave quarter of Oak Grove, a cotton plantation where her skill with needle and thread soon becomes highly prized.

Through hardship and deprivation, Joanna dreams of freedom and returning to Elm Creek Farm. Determined to remember each landmark on the route north, Joanna pieces a quilt of scraps left over from the household sewing, concealing clues within the meticulous stitches. Later, in service as a seamstress to the new bride of a Confederate officer, Joanna moves on to Charleston, where secrets she keeps will affect the fate of a nation, and her abilities and courage enable her to aid the country and the people she loves most.

The knowledge that scraps can be pieced and sewn into simple lines -- beautiful both in and of themselves and also for what they represent and what they can accomplish -- carries Joanna through dark days. Sustaining herself and her family through ingenuity and art during the Civil War and into Reconstruction, Joanna leaves behind a remarkable artistic legacy that, at last, allows Sylvia to discover the fate of the long-lost quilter.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her 14th series installment, Chiaverini picks up the threads from The Runaway Quilt to spin another tale of adventure, love, perseverance and, of course, quilting. When Sylvia Bergstrom Compson and her staff find a stash of old letters hidden in an antique desk in the manor's attic, the story whips back to 1859 to recount the travails of the formidable Joanna North, an escaped slave who spent a brief respite at Elm Creek Farm. Joanna is recaptured and sent back to the Virginia plantation she thought she had finally escaped, and is eventually dispatched to Charleston to work under her former master's demanding newlywed niece, Miss Evangeline. As the Civil War looms, Joanna learns that for a slave, nothing—love, family, loyalty—is sacred or certain, and she never ceases plotting her final escape in the patterns of her scrap quilting. This satisfying and redemptive narrative unfolds with cinematic clarity, and Joanna's journey is sure to have readers holding their breath for her until the last page. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

This volume in the now long-running Elm Creek Quilts series goes back to finish a story begun in The Runaway Quilt (2002). Joanna, runaway slave and quilter, traveled the Underground Railroad to Elm Creek Farm in 1859, only to be captured and forcibly returned to Virginia. Sylvia Compson has learned part of Joanna’s story through the journal of her great-great aunt Gerda Bergstrom and related historical research. Now, the discovery of a bundle of Joanna’s old letters reopens the mystery of what happened to the former slave. This story concentrates on Joanna and the Civil War years but also extends to her family and descendents. Once again clues unearthed from styles of quilting and fabrics used in different quilts help Sylvia and her friends track down what really happened during a remote period in history and help drive home Chiaverini’s point that women’s history adds a vital layer to our understanding of the past. This is an outstanding series of novels about a fascinating craft. Quilting, in the hands of Chiaverini, allows us to explore human relationships in all their complexity. --Judy Coon

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1 edition (March 31, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416533168
• ISBN-13: 978-1416533160
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #158,115 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jennifer Chiaverini lives with her husband and two sons in Madison, Wisconsin. In addition to the sixteen volumes in the Elm Creek Quilts series and four books of quilt patterns inspired by the novels, she designs the Elm Creek Quilts fabric line from Red Rooster Fabrics. For more information about Jennifer, please visit her website at www.elmcreek.net .

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quilting transcends time and social class, April 4, 2009

By 

Corinne H. Smith (Athol, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Lost Quilter: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel (Elm Creek Quilts Novels) (Hardcover)

During the off season, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson and some of her Elm Creek quilt camp staffers find a small stack of letters stuck in the locked drawer of an old desk. The letters date to the late 1800s and appear to be related to the story brought forth in "The Runaway Quilt," which revealed that a slave named Joanna was once harbored at the Bergstrom estate, just before the Civil War erupted. Sylvia would love to investigate the history behind the letters, but she feels that she's not a good enough researcher. And Summer Sullivan isn't around to help with the project. She's off in Chicago, going to grad school.

In the meantime, we readers are magically transported to 1859, and the day when Joanna is recaptured by slavers and is marched back on foot from Pennsylvania to Virginia. From that point on, the stage is all hers. What we learned in the previous book was merely a vignette, a tiny portion of Joanna's life story. Here, we're exposed to it all. We follow her back to the plantation she came from. We find out how and why Joanna began to quilt herself. We experience her days, both before and after her journey to central Pennsylvania. It's easy for us to like Joanna and champion her cause; and it's easy to want only good things to happen to her. But here it is her fate to be a slave in Virginia and then later, in South Carolina. Imagine facing such difficult times that you can find comfort only in a colleague's basic advice to just "Keep breathin'." Yikes.

As with any slave narrative, even a fictitious one, some of the scenes are heart-breaking at the very least and utterly reprehensible at the most. And yet, we need to be reminded of that part of our American past. We also need to make an international jump and acknowledge that somewhere else on the planet right now, other folks (both men and women) are being treated as inhumanely as African Americans were in the Confederate South in the mid-1800s. It's an unfortunate fact that cannot help but crop up in the back of the readers' minds, while their fingers continue to turn these pages.

Will Summer Sullivan be able to present Sylvia with ANY of Joanna's history merely through official documentation? Or will we readers now know more than Sylvia and the Elm Creek characters themselves ever will? That possibility in and of itself makes for an interesting dilemma.

Fans may want to back up and first re-read "The Runaway Quilt" so that the details are fresh in their minds for this continuation of the story. And yet, "The Lost Quilter" is a powerful, stand-alone read in its own right. Ms. Chiaverini has woven a fabric of historical fiction that is as compelling as any offered to us by veteran storyteller John Jakes.

To diehard readers who may yearn for an Elm Creek book that concentrates on the familiar, contemporary characters; and to those who may ask, "What does history have to do with quilts, anyway?" one can only say, Read the book. Read the book, and you will know why this story is an important one.

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Compelling slave narrative point of view., June 12, 2009

By 

Holly (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Lost Quilter: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel (Elm Creek Quilts Novels) (Hardcover)

I've read the Elm Creek books and, with few exceptions, I've liked them all. The Lost Quilter picks up the story of Joanna, the runaway slave from The Runaway Quilt. As with the other Elm Creek books, this one begins with Sylvia discovering a new fact about her family or their quilting. While the beginning and end of the book are about Sylvia trying to find out information about Joanna, the book itself is, Joanna's story.

After her son was born at the Bergstrom farm, Joanna was recaptured and returned to her master in Virginia. She took with her a desire to find her son, her newly found ability to read and her mastery with the needle. Her master sells her to his brother in South Carolina and Joanna begins a new life, finding friends and love. Joanna dreams of returning to Elm Creek and she pieces a quilt, reminiscent of the underground railroad quilts. In it she sews the landmarks she remembers, in hopes that someday it will guide her back to Elm Creek.

Joanna's strength sees her through difficulties with selfish mistresses and the Civil War, and the legacy she leaves behind will finally answer some of Sylvia's questions.

I was prepared to not like this book. I think that, at some point, a story needs to end. While I do think Jennifer Chiaverini runs the risk of weakening a strong story if she insists on giving every possible character their own book, I enjoyed this one. Slave narratives have always fascinated me, and reading the story from Joanna's viewpoint was compelling.

An easy, interesting read.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Welcome Back!, April 11, 2009

By 

M. D. Mulhern (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lost Quilter: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel (Elm Creek Quilts Novels) (Hardcover)

Whew- thank goodness Jennifer Chiaverini is back! I agree that this is one of her better books in a few years. "The Quilter's Kitchen" was a complete waste of time, paper and money. But a true story and set of characters is developed for this book. It's still a little short for my tastes, but definitely more than a novella. I miss the original Elm Creek Quilters but I understand that their stories may be done. I would even welcome new stories about the new hires, as long as they were of the same quality as the first books. I think fans of the series will be pleased by this latest in the series.