The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood.
This is actually the book that got me started knitting, because, in a way, I was looking for healing, too, and reading Ann’s book and actually learning how to knit as part of a knitting circle, helped in many ways.
The Knitting Circle is Ann Hood’s fictionalized account of the tragic death of her 5-year-old daughter, Grace, due to meningitis.** In The Knitting Circle, Mary Baxter has lost her small daughter, Stella, and after much doubt and reluctance, joins a knitting circle in Providence (RI) “as a way to fill the empty hours and lonely days.” The circle of friends she meets and the knitting she learns, which does soothe and calm, changes her life.
Each woman teaches Mary a new knitting technique, and, as they do, they reveal to her their own personal stories of loss, love, and hope. Eventually, through the hours they spend knitting and talking together, Mary is finally able to tell her own story of grief, and in so doing reclaims her love for her husband, faces the hard truths about her relationship with her mother, and finds the spark of life again.
This is a beautifully written, emotionally powerful novel.
** For a memoir that recounts the real events, read Comfort: A Journey Through Grief. For anyone who has lost someone close, this book is a gift and a burden. Publishers Weekly says Ann’s account reads “like a tightly controlled scream,” and the first chapter is as profound a description of grief as I have ever read. She does make her way through and up into healing and peace, but the journey is a difficult one. Meg
The Knitting Circle is Ann Hood’s fictionalized account of the tragic death of her 5-year-old daughter, Grace, due to meningitis.** In The Knitting Circle, Mary Baxter has lost her small daughter, Stella, and after much doubt and reluctance, joins a knitting circle in Providence (RI) “as a way to fill the empty hours and lonely days.” The circle of friends she meets and the knitting she learns, which does soothe and calm, changes her life.
Each woman teaches Mary a new knitting technique, and, as they do, they reveal to her their own personal stories of loss, love, and hope. Eventually, through the hours they spend knitting and talking together, Mary is finally able to tell her own story of grief, and in so doing reclaims her love for her husband, faces the hard truths about her relationship with her mother, and finds the spark of life again.
This is a beautifully written, emotionally powerful novel.
** For a memoir that recounts the real events, read Comfort: A Journey Through Grief. For anyone who has lost someone close, this book is a gift and a burden. Publishers Weekly says Ann’s account reads “like a tightly controlled scream,” and the first chapter is as profound a description of grief as I have ever read. She does make her way through and up into healing and peace, but the journey is a difficult one. Meg
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