Backstitch - by Marian Mitchell Donahue (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"[a] fascinating and rewarding novel." - The New York Times

"Backstitch is a splendid, irreducible work of art - about making art, about time, about memory, about the stars in the heavens, and maybe most of all about family." - Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tinkers

Two sisters, Violet and Marigold, reunite at a retrospective of their troubled mother's art. Together they must confront the consequences of her ambition and the difficult, private reality of the family's public narrative. Moving through the gallery's rooms and through time to arrive at the truth of her life and death, the daughters unravel their family ties, the gift and cost of artistic talent, and the legacy that they must carry.

Review Quotes

"[...] The novel works like a puzzle, and Donahue handles this ambitious structure with deftness and confidence. [...] The wideness of Donahue's lens, which encompasses the perspectives of not only the artist-parent but also her daughter-subjects, is illuminating but not exhaustive; like any retrospective show, the novel suggests the full picture of Alice's identities and contradictions through representative moments. In that, it feels true. [...] a fascinating and rewarding novel." - The New York Times

"A thoughtful, complex exploration of art and womanhood." - Kirkus starred review

"Backstitch is a splendid, irreducible work of art - about making art, about time, about memory, about the stars in the heavens, and maybe most of all about family. Marian Mitchell Donahue masterfully choreographs her characters orbiting each other among their generations. She curates their fraught, loving evolutions and revolutions, their explorations with paint and gold leaf and canvas and wood and yarn and tulle, their considerations of the celestial lights, stitching memory and time and color and light together, now impossibly stark and chilled, now miraculously consoling, always astonishingly beautiful." - Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tinkers.

"In Backstitch, Marian Mitchell Donahue unspools the haunting story of a visionary artist whose brilliance is matched only by her volatility-and the two daughters caught in her gravitational pull. Moving fluidly through time, the novel exposes the blurred lines between creation and destruction, love and madness. A gripping, compulsive read." - B.A. Shapiro, NYT best selling author of The Lost Masterpiece and The Art Forger.

"Backstitch is a wonderfully intelligent and enthralling novel about the costs of making art, both for the artist, and for her daughters. Donahue has a remarkable gift for describing art and it is as if we too are walking through the exhibition, appreciating each of Alice's vivid fibre art pieces, even as we learn about the tangled history and emotions that led to this triumphant moment. I reached the last page with profound pleasure and deep admiration." - Margot Livesey, author of The Road From Belhaven

"Grounded in the slippery pursuit of truth, Marian Mitchell Donahue's Backstitch wrestles with the very idea of making and memory, examining both the price of art and all its riches." - Christine Coulson, bestselling author of One Woman Show

'Marian Donahue's Backstitch is more than a remarkable or noteworthy debut novel. It is a feast of exquisite language that brilliantly depicts the complicated mess common to all families and all artists. This epic tale of the Snyders is the perfect marriage of form and masterful storytelling and it will stay with you long after you finish the last page." - Robert Lopez, author of The Best People