A Pledge of Silence

Flora J. Solomon's book A Pledge of Silence won Amazon's 2014 Breakthrough Book Award, the prize being publication by Lake Union Press.

1936 finds Margie a typical Michigan small town girl, with a childhood sweetheart and dreams of becoming a New York City dress designer. Her mother has other ideas and encourages her daughter to become a nurse. Margie is accepted into medical school in Ann Arbor while her fiancée goes off to fighter pilot school.

After America enters WWII Margie is called to active service. She is shipped to the exotic Philippines. She is finally escaping her small town, but mother soon rues pushing her daughter into nursing.

Manila was the 'Pearl of the Orient', a splendid city created by 40 years of American occupation. After Margie's fiancée breaks off their engagement, Margie meets Royce, a handsome young doctor, and they become involved and fall in love. Her best friend Evelyn is seeing a doctor who is manipulative and devious. Rumors of rape follow his trail.

But the Japanese bomb the Allied military installations and take over the island. The soldiers are taken to Bataan of the infamous 'death march'  during which Royce is killed by the Japanese. The nurses are relocated to Corrigidor's underground hospital. When the Japenese reach Corrigidor the nurses and civilians are taken to Santo Tomas prison camp where they face starvation and depredation. Margie finds solace with Wade, also from Little River, Michigan, and after the war they plan to marry.

When the island is liberated by American troops Margie's ordeal is not over. What happens leaves as great, or greater, an impact on her psyche than even the POW camp and life in a war zone.

"An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior."

The first part of the book deals with Margie's roots and time in Manila as a hospital nurse during WWII. The second part follows her into a Prisoner of War camp. The third section shows Margie back home, married, and with children but suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and guilt. The ending shows how she finds help and reinvents her life.

The book keeps the reader going at a fast pace, especially after Margie arrives in Manila. Those unfamiliar with WWII in Southeast Asia will find this an eye-opening history lesson. I was uncertain about the relatively hands-off treatment of the women under the Japanese, but the POW experience is based on the author's research based on first-hand accounts. The Pledge of Silence was an actually paper POWs signed at liberation, and also refers to Margie's self-imposed silence to protect her family from knowing her dark secrets and deep pain.

This book will appeal to many readers, particularly women: those interested in historical fiction, strong female protagonists, issues of war related health issues. We follow Margie's many changes in the book, from a 16 year old to old age. She undergoes psychological treatment; turns to prayer; and finally organizing a food bank to fill her need to do something.

I found Margie and the nurses to be well drawn. The men in her life seemed more stock characters.I had expected that life at Santa Tomas would have been harsher. Lack of food and proper nutrition wore down the prisoner's health but there was little personal threat individually from the Japanese guards. I thought that Margie's reactions, as well as her veteran brother's, to readjusting to life back stateside had good emotional draw. Her crisis of self-imposed silence is poignant.  Perhaps the ending is a little too nicely wrapped up, but it is what the reader would want for this woman who has endured so much.

I received the free ebook through NetGalley for a fair and unbiased review.

A Pledge of Silence
Flora J. Solomon
Lake Union Press
Publication Date:February 24, 2015
$14.95 paperback
ISBN: 9781477820865

Trunk Show: Quilts Old and Older

Clearing out and organizing has become part of daily life since retirement and moving to a smaller house. I am still finding places to store my quilts. I find that I don't have decent photographs of all my quilts, including many which I no longer have. Here are some photos I have come across of quilts made in the last century!

A challenge by the Capital City Quilt Guild in Lansing was to make a quilt based on a book title. I chose Remembrance of Things Past by Proust. The center has these appliqued pansies, enhanced with colored pencil. 

In the border I used prints evocative of personal memories, and added embellishments from my past--like this patch from the Kenmore, NY Day Camp at Herbert Hoover Junior High in the early 1960s.

This pattern was from a 1990s magazine, I think Traditional Quilting, but instead of signatures I penned my favorite book and song quotations.

I had only been quilting a few years when a Hillsdale, MI neighbor asked me to maker her a quilt in colors she could not find. She liked this Georgia Bonesteel pattern. It was one of the largest quilts I have made, and also one of the more difficult. It is hand quilted.

Another early quilt is this Cactus Basket. I shocked some folk when I used the large scale floral print. I had seen such things done in antique quilts pictured in magazines and books. But it was not done much in the 1990s. On the wall is my Mary Pickfort collage.

I made this for my office when working as a church secretary, inspired by the stained glass windows in the hallway outside the office door. I guess it still hangs in there. I made matching window valances.

Life in the parsonage can be brutal. Conflicts within the church often overflows to the pastor and parsonage family. This quilt top shows a family in the center surrounded by those who have isolated them, and broken crosses to represent a broken church community no longer heeding God's will. It was good therapy but I never finished this quilt.

I had few skills and a small fabric stash and no money when I came up with the idea to use a traditional block design for Easter Sunrise.

The quilt looked horrid close up but on Easter Sunday it worked out pretty nice.

I had super confidence when young and never balked at trying anything. So to pay for my fabric habit I signed on to teach at a Jackson, MI quilt shop. This was a class sample for my first class.

I had few skills and had not even TAKEN a class, but learned from quilting around the frame with a quilt group at church and from books and magazines. 

Don't ever be afraid to JUST DO IT. Perfection is the result of practice, so make all the mistakes you can and learn. Plus, no one ever said perfection was a requisite for a beautiful and loved quilt. What are collectors seeking today? Improvised, folk, imperfect, polyester, quilts--the very ones that not long ago were relegated for picnic blanket and pet use.

Madison's Gift: Five Partnerships that Built America by David O. Stewart

I have read quite a few books on Dolley Madison but had not read a book about her husband President James Madison. So I was glad to have been accepted to read David O. Stewart's upcoming book Madison's Gift which looks at Madison's working relationships with President George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, President Thomas Jefferson, President James Monroe and his wife Dolley. Although the reader receives a basic understanding of Madison's biography it is really a 'political biography', similar to Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals" which considered Lincoln and his cabinet which was made up of political rivals for the presidency.

Madison's service to his country included championing the 1787 Constitutional Convention and the Bill of Rights; the creation of the first political party in alliance with Thomas Jefferson; service as the first 'war president' during the War of 1812;  the revision of The Articles of Confederation to insure the government rested on a more solid base; fine tuning the election process; support for a national tax to fund a standing army and pay debt; working on the amendment to guarantee free speech, the right to bear arms, due process of law, the freedom of the press and other rights we take for granted today.

Madison had a systematic and deep intelligence. He was small and frail in body, but was a giant intellectually. His public persona was not easy and warm, although his good humor shone in his family life. His friendships and partnerships perfectly balanced his weaknesses. Jefferson and Monroe forged deep friendships with Madison, with Jefferson encouraging Madison to become a neighbor, while the Monroes in Europe purchased and shipped furnishings for the Madison's first home.

Dolley was a beautiful and well off young widow when Madison fell in love with her from afar. Martha Washington encouraged Dolley to consider Madison's attentions and she married the "great little Madison", who was 15 years older and considerably smaller than her. But their relationship became legendary, both as marriage and political partners.

Stewart's book covers familiar events and historical passages but in a detail that opened for me a better appreciation and understanding. Our American government did not spring full blown at its inception. It took years of considered thought and political action to hone the system we now enjoy. At the center of this continual process was James Madison. He did not work in a vacuum, but in accordance with other gifted, inspired, and dedicated men.

I was not always riveted by the book. It does take attention. But the story is an important one, and made me better appreciate the marvelous experiment called democracy.

I received this e-book through NetGalley and Simone & Schuster for a fair and unbiased review.

Madison's Gift: Five Partnerships that Built America
by David O. Stewart
Simon & Schuster
Publication Feb 10, 2015
ISBN: 9781451688580
$28.00

Two New Handkerchiefs

First,  a mint with label Tammis Keefe hanky of Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI

And the third in the series by SwissAir I have found

Here are the others:

Book Reviews To Come

I have some very exciting quilt books to review! In the coming months look for reviews on:

All Points Patchwork: English Paper Piecing Beyond the Hexagon by Diane Gilleland and published by Storey Publishing covering every aspect of paper piecing from A to Z. I can't wait to try her techniques.

Quilting With Doilies: Inspiration, Techniques & Projects by Barbara Polston and published by Schiffer Publications looks so great I already pre-ordered the book! Her techniques will solve some problems I encounter. Plus, I love using doilies in quilts.

Art Quits Of The Midwest by Linzee Kull McCray and published by the University of Iowa Press is a lovely book featuring 20 Midwestern quilt artists, including three from Michigan, with a focus on how the region impacts their quilts.


Non-Fiction Books in reading list include:

• Children of the Stone by Sandy Tolan, author of The Lemon Tree, telling the story of one boy's jorny from a Palestinian refugee camp to bring music education to children of war.
• A Pledge of Silence by Flora J. Solomon relates the story of a WWII army nurse in a prisoner of war camp.
• Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by  Charlotte Gordon

Fiction books on my shelf include:

• The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl. I have loved his books, starting with The Dante Club. This one involves Robert Louis Stevenson, one of my childhood favorite authors.
• The Children's Crusade by Anne Packer, whose Dive From Clausen Pier I read.

Historical Fiction includes:

• The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg, about George Sand.
• The Rocheforts by Christian Laborie is a family saga about the ruthless French manufacturer of denim.

These are all NetGalley ebooks available for an unbiased review.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Richard Mayhew was not remarkable. He was quite passive about life. His troll collection was made of gifts from people who thought he really liked trolls.  He had found one on the sidewalk and brought it to his cubical. His fiancée believed he could do more, be more. He was grateful to have a beautiful and successful woman take interest in him. Because they had met at the National Gallery, she assumed he liked art. They spent a lot of time walking around galleries.

Richard was to attend his fiancé's grand opening of a new exhibit when he comes across a bleeding girl on the street. He stops to help her in spite of her warnings and protests. He brings her home and his life disappears. His fiancée breaks off their engagement. His job disappears. People no longer recognize, then no longer even see him. He finds himself on the street, bewildered and uncertain. The girl, named Door, takes him along on her journey to another London where adventures and nightmares await.

"You man, understand this: there are two Londons. There's London Above--that's where you lived--and then theres London Below--the Underside--inhabited by the people who fell through the cracks in the world. Now you're one of them."  

Richard's story is a journey quest where he becomes more than the man his fiancée ever imagined he could be. He longs to return to the London Above where things make sense. But he will never be the same person again.

London Under is vividly imagined, a hostile environment full of nightmarish creatures. It is laid out along the London Underground, where Blackfriars has Black Friars and Earl's Court has an earl. There is horror and gruesome tidbits, there is dark humor and satire, and there are people who seek answers and truth.

I loved noticing little clues about this alternate London, like when Door and Richard are going through a gallery with statues of "dead Greek Gods". Were the Greek Gods ever 'alive'? one asks. There is no question; in the alternate world Gaiman imagines the Gods were all alive once. Richard is made fun of by the London Under denizens for wanting to return home, as if he were Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. They know there is no escape. But he finds he had discovered and held the key for his return.

Reviewers mention John Milton, Monty Python Doctor Who, George Lucas, and other precursors. I see Joseph Campbell's Quest of the Hero, Jung's night sea journey, and mythology in Richard's story. The descent into an underworld, the quest, the battling of monsters, the magical helpers, the transfiguration of the hero...it's all here.

My edition of the book includes a book group guide and interview with Gaiman who says,

"I wanted to write a story about someone growing up and changing; and about someone who goes through a book wanting something, and then, when he finally gets that thing finds he isn't the person who wanted it any longer. (The price of getting what you want, I had someone say in Sandman, is getting what once you wanted.)" 

I am not a big reader of genre fiction. But I am glad my genre fiction blooger son has directed my attention to Gaiman. Sometimes I just want to read something different. And Gaiman always delivers.

http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/Neverwhere/

Shirts Into Aprons, A Patriotic Redwork Quilt, And A SwissAir Hanky

I have joined a group of quilters who meet weekly at the Senior Center. There. I admit it: I am going to the SENIOR center!

The ladies bring machines and hand work of all kinds. There is a show-and-tell and we lunch together.

This week recent widow Joyce explained how she was turning her husband's shirts into aprons. The first one she made is going to her husband's sister. Joyce conceived the idea and worked it out herself.

Joyce wearing her shirt apron and holding an apron made with jeans

 As you can see in the photograph above, Joyce cuts the sleeves off the shirt, but leaves the collar and also the back yoke intact. She cuts along the double seams wherever possible for a finished trim.

The back of the shirt is cut out. She layered the shirt, matching the side seams, and cut the back out. For smaller sized shirts she does not cut along the side seam but adds a few inches along the side; for large shirts she can cut along the side seam. The back of the shirt makes bias binding to encase raw edges. The sleeves are turned into the tie closure.

Joyce also showed us the aprons she makes with jeans.

Theresa brought in her first Redwork project for my closer inspection. She had it at her talk at the Clawson library a few weeks ago. It is hand quilted, too.

George Washington

John Adams

James Monroe and Liberty Bell

 

I loved the Swiss Air hanky I bought a few months back and have been looking for the other three in the set. I now have the Japanese one!

Here is the first one I found: