Pieceworks

Jeanette Reid's main characters are mostly youth trying to see and understand the outer world and find deeper meaning within their own lives. Sixteen-year-old Norma Jean Taylor desperately seeks answers to the questions that have plagued her since she discovered a miniature quilt under a false bottom of an old chest in the attic of the family farm. Ninety-year-old Avis relives her early years with the rediscovery of a delicate Japanese fan in the bottom of a Malaysian teak chest. A shy third grader meets her nemesis in the terrifying guise of a server in the school cafeteria. A young couple discovers a discarded love seat in the middle of a highway and involves the whole family in a spirited debate about what to do with it. This collection of Pieceworks depicts characters of every age from nine to ninety. Its moods range from joy to sorrow, nostalgia, suspense, surprise, frustration, anger, fear, and hilarity. Against the inevitable clash of the outer with the inner world, the unconventional characters in this novella and five short stories emerge as pieces in the freeform design of a beautiful quilt that gives symmetry and deep-rooted meaning to their individual lives.