The Goodbye Quilt [Hardcover]

Susan Wiggs (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 29, 2011

Linda Davis's local fabric shop is a place where women gather to share their creations: wedding quilts, baby quilts, memorial quilts, each bound tight with dreams, hopes and yearnings.

Now, as her only child readies for college, Linda is torn between excitement for Molly and heartache for herself. Who will she be when she is no longer needed in her role as mom?

As mother and daughter embark on a cross-country road trip to move Molly into her dorm, Linda pieces together the scraps that make up Molly's young life--the hem of a christening gown, a snippet from a Halloween costume. And in the stitching of each bit of fabric, Linda discovers that the memories of a shared journey can come together in a way that will keep them both warm in the years to come....

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Susan Wiggs paints the details

of human relationships with the

finesse of a master."

-Jodi Picoult

"With the ease of a master, Wiggs introduces complicated, flesh-and-blood characters into her idyllic but identifiable small-town setting...." --Publishers Weekly, starred review on The Winter Lodge

"Wiggs's talent is reflected in her thoroughly believable characters as well as the way she recognizes the importance of family by blood or other ties."

-Library Journal

"Wiggs is one of our best observers of stories of the heart. She knows how to capture emotion on virtually every page of every book."

-Salem Statesman-Journal

"Wiggs' prose is both compelling and moving...Each and every character is finely detailed, and finishing the book feels like saying goodbye to dear old friends."-RT BookReviews on Summer at Willow Lake

"Just Breathe is tender and heartbreaking... It's a beautiful novel." --Luanne Rice

"Wiggs takes serious situations and weaves them into an emotionally wrought story that will have readers reaching for the Kleenex one moment and snickering out loud the next."-Publishers Weekly on Just Breathe

"Wiggs explores many aspects of grief, from guilt to anger to regret, imbuing her book with the classic would've/could've/should've emotions, and presenting realistic and sympathetic characters.... another excellent title to her already-outstanding body of work." --Booklist, starred review, on Table for Five

About the Author

When Susan Wiggs's recent novel, Fireside, landed at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, the author responded by jumping fully clothed into her swimming pool. In February. In the Pacific Northwest. After thawing herself out, the author put on her lipstick and vacuumed the living room. Why? Because on the tiny island where she lives, news travels fast. She knew her girlfriends would show up momentarily - which they did - with the customary champagne and bags of Cheetos. She toasted her loyal readers, whose unflagging interest in her books propelled her sales upward. She toasted her friends and family as well, since they have always been the source of her inspiration. From the very start, her writings have illuminated the everyday dramas of ordinary people. At the age of eight, she self-published her first novel, entitled A Book About Some Bad Kids. Today, she is an international best-selling author, with millions of copies of her books in print in numerous countries. Her Lakeshore Chronicles novels celebrate the power of love, the timeless bonds of family and the nuances of human nature that make headlines every day. She lives on an island in the Pacific Northwest and is perpetually working on her next novel.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Mira; 400 edition (March 29, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0778329968
• ISBN-13: 978-0778329961
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #567,379 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Susan Wiggs's life is all about family, friends...and fiction. She's been featured in the national media, including NPR's Talk of the Nation, and is a popular speaker locally and nationally.

From the very start, her writings have illuminated the everyday dramas of ordinary people. At the age of eight, she self-published her first novel, entitled "A Book About Some Bad Kids."

Today, she is an international best-selling, award-winning author, with millions of copies of her books in print in numerous countries. Her recent novel, Marrying Daisy Bellamy, took the #1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller List, and The Lakeshore Chronicles have won readers' hearts around the globe. Her books celebrate the power of love, the timeless bonds of family and the fascinating nuances of human nature.

She lives with her husband and family at the water's edge on an island in the Pacific Northwest, where she divides her time between sleeping and waking.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Memories Shared April 4, 2011

By ruthjoec

Format:Hardcover

Sometimes I will say about a book "It was exactly what I expected when I picked it up" and when I picked up this Susan Wiggs novel, I pretty much figured that even if I didn't say that in this review, I would be able to. I was wrong. Instead of a book that was a sweet pleasant afternoon diversion I got a book that touched my heart. Maybe it is because like Linda, I have a child on the cusp of adulthood (though unlike her, I have a six year old, and many more years of motherhood to go).

I loved everything about the book. It is a love story--but the love is the love of a mother for her daughter. There is romance--the romance between the daughter headed for a selective university across the country and the sweet hometown boy who will never be anything but a hometown boy and the romance between Mom and Dad, a love that Linda cherishes and is a little afraid of losing now that parenting is done. As Linda stitches on the memory quilt (a quilt made of fabric from clothes significant to certain times and events of Molly's childhood) she shares the stories with Molly, who can't remember most of them.

The story is told in the first person by Linda and I loved hearing her tell her story. She's a woman who had dreams of going to college but her family didn't support those dreams and when Mr. Wonderful asked her to marry him, college soon fell by the wayside. She's spent the last eighteen years caring for her family, and is now wondering what the future will hold. She muses about her past and her future and over the course of their cross country trip learns to accept that her daughter is now an adult and does not need (or want) her to fix things that go wrong.

The Goodbye Quilt is a beautifully written book I'd highly recommend to any woman facing an empty nest. Grade: A

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley. I was not obligated to write any review, much less a positive one.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Stays with you April 4, 2011

By Dr Cathy Goodwin TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Teenager Molly has dazzled everyone by winning a scholarship to an unnamed prestigious college on the East Coast. She and her mother drive cross-country to take her there. Molly drives while Linda quilts, each square a symbol of a family member.

Road trips can become dull but this book held my interest all the way. Wiggs captures the experience of a long drive: wondering whether to stop or keep going, moving without experiencing the surroundings, and finding surprises at every stop.

The author also captures the style of young people today. Young women in their twenties seem wiser in the ways of the world. Molly's a capable driver and a mature young woman. I can relate the way Linda keeps finding new ways to admire Molly, with that half-surprise at how well she turned out.

She also shows us - with economical prose - the trajectory of Linda's life: dropping out of college and then getting caught up in family. There's a sensitive moment when Linda gets an idea in her head and calls her husband in the middle of the night. He talks her out of it, half-asleep, and you can sense their bond in this one conversation.

The book's a little strong for chick lit but not quite strong enough for literary fiction. It's not really an "escape" page-turner. It's more satisfying, like a really good homemade donut served with a cup of coffee.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Unapologetically sentimental mother-and-daughter road trip May 8, 2011

By Esther Schindler TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Please don't pay attention to the 3 stars I give this book, because it may very well be 5 stars for you.

The story is simple: When 18 year old Molly is headed to college, Mom decides they should drive cross-country together. On the way, Mom works to finish a quilt for Molly's dorm room. They talk, and they have minor adventures, but mostly Mom Linda has a lot of internal dialog about what it means to raise a daughter, and how to re-start her life with her husband, and a good-sized helping of "What am I going to do now?!" The book is also a quick read; I think I was done in about three hours.

When I pick fiction books to read from my Amazon Vine selections, I try to stretch myself outside of my usual genres of mystery or science fiction. This novel appealed to me because it's at least a little bit about a quilt, and if you've read my reviews you'll know that I'm an enthusiastic if inexpert quilter. The quilting was a bit disappointing (but then it usually is for me in a novel), since it's never clear just what Mom's doing. It sometimes sounds as though she's adding more fabrics to the quilt while she's doing the final hand quilting. And really: I've done quilting in a car; I can't believe that the author never so much as mentioned how awkward it is to juggle a full sized blanket on your lap in the passenger seat in late summer. So I don't urge my quilting friends to pick up this book for that reason.

However, Susan Wiggs is an accomplished writer, and I immediately cared about the characters. Many authors can't get away with so much character navel-gazing, but Wiggs pulls it off. In less competent hands, this book would be sappy and saccharine. Here it's simply sentimental as Linda worries whether she's taught Molly everything she needs to know, or debates with herself whether she's protected Molly too much or not enough, or reminisces about incidents in their past (like Molly's first piano recital). However, I've never had kids, and while I can acknowledge the bundle of emotions that our heroine is feeling, I don't relate to them. It's a good sentimental novel... for sentiments I don't really have.

You might be in a completely different place -- and this book might pluck at your heart strings. I expect that mothers whose daughters are in a life transition will really love this novel.