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Pieces from Life's Crazy Quilt (American Lives)

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This journey to the Detroit of the 1930s and 40s also takes the reader on a ride through the first years of a young African American girl's life--her relationships with family, church, and community, her growth toward an understanding of her own potential. Marvin Arnett's story is bright with both humor and poignancy as she clearly draws her characters and their struggles in a pre-Civil Rights American city. Her voice is clear and plain-spoken, and she creates an intimacy for the reader with person and place that will stay in the mind indefinitely.

Read this book for its history, but read it also for its humanity. Marvin Arnett believes in humankind. The book is a testament to that hope.

Marvin V. Arnett has spun a delightful coming of age saga that starts in 1928 when there wasn't much to be delighted about in the United States. The Great Depression was about to strike, World War II was on its way, there were family tragedies and riots would hit the nation's large cities. In addition, the church sanctioned certain segments of the population making them pariahs. Marvin Sprague's family, although poor with her father working as a cook at a downtown Detroit hotel, managed to share what they did have with neighbors who were less fortunate in spite of the church's disapproval. Her father gave leftover food and her mother, with her magic sewing machine, turned out clothes for children who had only rags.

In what was, indeed, a time of segregation, poverty and grimness, throughout the story Arnett's wonderful sense of humor lightens the heavy burden. She tells of the time when she was ten and had read all the children's books in the library. The librarian took pity on her and gave her a restricted adult card. Marvin promptly checked out a steamy adult book causing her father to roar and her to blame the librarian. He chastised the librarian and from that point on Marvin's visits to the library were not as pleasant as they had been; she stopped her regular visits until she was old enough to visit the main branch by herself.

The book gives a social history of a time period that many Americans know little about. It has the personal touch that brings the Depression and the Detroit Riot of 1943 alive with characters the reader can readily relate to and empathize with. While each chapter could certainly stand alone, Arnett ties the whole together in a wonderful story that can be enjoyed by everyone.

Reviewed by Alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

There once was a time when the elemental Afro American family consisted not only of father/mother/offspring, but also included grandparents, the church and the neighborhood. This was a time when it was common place for three or sometimes four generations to live together in one home. The love, care and warmth of the family did not end when one walked out of one's house to go to work, school or play. Back then,"the hood", was in fact a true "neighborhood". "Pieces From Life's Crazy Quilt" recalls the golden days of Afro American social existence and life in Detroit during the 1930s - 1940s. What the author, Marvin Arnett has done is create a literal time machine that transports us back to those times in a very descriptive and emotional manner. This work is a intimate and insighful look into the life and influences of a child growing up admist colorful, warm and sometimes ominus character arrays. That Arnett includes stories and lessons from the bright and the dark side of her experiences speaks volumes for her knack at providing and maintaining balance in her descriptions of characters and environments. This is a work that will remind Arnett's peers that there once was a time where the neighbor hood was a nuturing and loving place. The younger reader who is looking for a better way of life and a better way of living it will be transfixed to discover what used to be and what may be possible to recreate. They need to know that there really USED to be a time when the black community in Detroit had empathy and mutual respect as foundations for behavior instead of the current impersonal co-existence. I look for this work to one day be transformed into a movie or musical play. The imagery is powerful. Kudows to the author for inventing a work that is entertaining, educational and most of all, practical. "Pieces from Life's Crazy Quilt" is a detailed and imagery loaded work that is also a warm, honest and some times dark snap shot of yesterday. ...and if we relly take to heart the lessons that Arnett teaches us, it can also serve as a potential road map for finding our way back home.

This endearing memoir reminds me so much of stories my great grandmother used to share. The only difference here is Marvin's account has been preserved.

In a delicate voice, almost too soothing at first, before I knew it, it had swept me inside a community of mores that today is but a shell of a distant memory.

There were the beverage of terms and terminologies to court. The camaraderie (and sometimes open acrimony) between (new) neighbors was stirring, as were the church and its followings. A female pastor in that time, I must admit, surprised me. And I truly was impressed by the way Marvin drew out the events surrounding little Ronnie and the resulting closure. Absolutely beautiful. There were many favorite spots to stop and muse on, but one that comes right to mind was the `chicken leg fracas', as I so applauded Mr. Sprague's viewpoints throughout! There is so much in here to appreciate that all of this and more surpasses priceless information, and assuredly is far from `crazy' quilting. Far, far, from it.

Upon reaching the epilogue (bottom paragraphs), had me asking (along with the title) if the author, or editor, were aware of the numerous historical writings where chunks of time about cultures/peoples are omitted, simply stated as "not much is known because records weren't kept or written."

What I am saying here is I am a true believer. I believe this work is priceless, one to serve history of a such a time. I'm quite pleased to have come across one more in print. An inspiringly beautiful memoir!

A length of velvet from an old bathrobe, a scrap from a forgotten apron worn in a kitchen who-knows-where, a touch of white satin from a lost child's baby bonnet--Grace Melissa Sprague treasured these discards and crafted them into art. Now her daughter has followed her mother's calling. But rather than transforming patches of precious fabric into glowing crazy quilts, in Pieces from Life's Crazy Quilt, Marvin V. Arnett has transformed her Detroit childhood memories into stories that are just as comforting and colorful.

Detroit in the 1930s was a tough place to live, particularly for a black family. Arnett recalls that the hard times of the Great Depression hit the city early, before the stock market crash of 1929. When the last Model T car ran off the assembly line at the Ford plant, things turned down and stayed down. It was the year of Arnett's birth.

In this memoir, she recounts her hard growing-up years unflinchingly. The good times--the church as a beacon of hope, her mother's "lighter-than-air" angel food cake, and her own enduring friendship with school chum Beatrice--and the bad--the death of a beloved sister, the ache following the racist remark of a respected teacher.

Each of the thirty chapters takes a sliver of the family's life and weaves a separate story that can stand alone. But together, these patchwork stories portray life in the Green house on Herbert Street as a glory to remember and to inspire.

Just as a quilt has a backing, so did the family--the strong father, William Sprague. The well-traveled man of sophistication, wisdom and some mystery supported his family as a chef; although, as an African-American he had to accept a lesser title. Later, as the Depression deepened, circumstance forced him into less savory jobs, including being a numbers runner for the Detroit Police Department. The support William gave his family was more than financial. He was always there, not only for them but also for their neighbors and community. He helped elderly Mrs. Eubanks gather the strength and nerve to vote for her hero, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and once took on the Detroit school system when the home economics teacher required the African-American girls to scrub and clean windows while exempting the other students. He won.

While William backed the family, it was Grace Melissa who stitched the love in place. She took that old bathrobe and converted it into an elegant frock for young Marvin. She shepherded her children to the Church of the True Believers, and she practiced what they preached.Of the many delightful pieces in the book, "The Great Feet Washings" is particularly true and telling. Grace Melissa also befriended the isolated Miss Lila and came out like a tiger when a neighborhood clergyman made an inappropriate advance toward her child. The man left town that night.

While Arnett's stories of her girlhood are charming, revealing and intriguing, the story of her book is equally riveting. A federal employee for over twenty-five years (former vice president of the National Organization of Blacks in Government), Arnett wrote her memories and then sought a publisher. Finding none, she published the book herself and sold it when and where she could, including from the back of her car. An instructor in a writing seminar who was entranced by the stories became her champion and brought the book to the attention of writer Tobias Wolff, editor of the prestigious "American Lives" series published by the University of Nebraska Press. This book is now a part of that series.

by Patricia Nordyke Pando
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women