Reviews: (by author)

Warner, Sunny. The Moon Quilt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. ISBN 0-618-05583-5. $15.

A very satisfying if poignant story, The Moon Quilt features an old woman who dreams of her "old man," lost at sea. With her cat on her lap, she envisions him on his fishing boat, gliding on a rainbow in the night sky and growing younger and younger. This comforting dream she translates, upon awakening, into a quilt she is making. She also remembers to plant pumpkins, knowing they'll be ready in time for her to bake pies for the many children she'll invite into her kitchen on Halloween. During the day, she tends her garden and at night she sews. As quilters are wont to do, she puts into the design mementos of her current life and her life with her husband, adding to the dream design she has begun. After the costumed children appear for Halloween and eat her pumpkin pies, she sews images of them into the moon quilt. Finally, she appliques in images of her faithful cat and of herself in her purple dress. Winter comes and the old lady's eyes close; so do her cat's. Together and now both young again, they join the fisherman husband on his boat, sailing on the nighttime rainbow.

This gentle book about gentle death, full of images of a satisfying country life and using one's hands to plant flowers, to make pies to delight children, and to sew memories into cloth, is subtle. In the book's beginning, Warner states that when the old woman's eyes are open, her cat's eyes are closed; the converse is also true. Thus, when the conclusion states that both the woman's and her cat's eyes close, we know they have died and gone to the world the woman dreamed of, where they join her husband.

The book's comforting colors, rounded shapes, and bucolic setting add to the sense of peacefulness. But the major pleasure of the book is the depiction of the woman's quilt as her memories make it whole. The patterns, the materials, the beautiful sewing all compose a picture of a life well lived.

A.A. Nov. '02

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