The Knitting Circle (35 page)

In the rocking chair, Holly sat with a skein of Rowan chunky yarn and her oversized needles, a long scarf hanging from them already. She only knit with these big needles, fast and furiously, producing a scarf or hat every time she came to the knitting circle.

Alice was teaching a new woman how to knit. Mary watched the concentration on the stranger’s face beneath a tumble of dark curls.

“In college I knit a sweater for my boyfriend,” the woman said apologetically. “A Lopi? On round needles?”

“I can bet you didn’t marry him,” Harriet said. “That’s an Irish folk saying. Knit a sweater for a boyfriend and he’ll never be your husband. Isn’t that right, Ellen?”

“Something like that,” Ellen said, winking at the woman.

“Now you’ve gone and dropped a few stitches,” Alice said.

“Sorry,” the woman said. “I’m too much of a wreck to learn, I think.”

“Nonsense,” Alice said. “I’ve taught people in all stages of emotional distress. They all learned. Every one of them. You will too, Maggie.”

“I’ll be the first failure then,” Maggie said, watching as Alice carefully picked up the dropped stitches.

“In knitting,” Alice told her, “you can always correct the mistakes. Always.”

Harriet put down her knitting and glared at Mary standing in the doorway.

“What in the world are you doing standing there like that?” Harriet said to her.

Unable to answer, Mary walked into the room and took the empty seat by the window. She had just finished knitting a scarf for Dylan. All she had to do was cast off and then she could begin her blanket.

“That’s Mary,” Alice told the woman. “In no time, she’ll be teaching you to purl.”

“I don’t think so,” Maggie said. “I can’t even get the knitting down.”

“Maggie,” Alice said, “yes you can. Look at that perfect row there.”

Maggie held up her knitting and examined her work. Then she started to cry.

“Sorry,” she said. “I cry over everything these days.”

Mary recognized something in this woman. A sadness, a grief that was yet too fresh to put into words. “I’m going to give you my phone number,” she said, “and when you’ve finished that, call me and I’ll teach you how to purl.”

“I won’t be calling you anytime soon,” Maggie said. She bent her head. “My sister said knitting would help. As if anything could.”

Mary knew that Maggie would call her soon. Tomorrow, or the next day. She would go home and knit and eventually the knitting would make the endless, painful hours somehow bearable. Mary knew this. But she said nothing. Instead, she began to cast off.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to Hillary Day and Heather Watkins for telling me to use my hands; to Pam Young and Karla Harry for suggesting I learn how to knit; to Poo White for giving me Jen Silverman’s name and phone number; and to Jen, who taught me how to knit. Thanks also to Stephanie, Nancy, Louise, and Alex from Sakonnet Purls, who picked up my dropped stitches and my spirits, over and over; Amy Lupica, who taught me how to cast off; Drake Patten, who drove every week one snowy winter to Tiverton with me; my knitting comrades Jennifer Becker, Nancy Compton, Ruth Rosenberg, Sarah Baldwin-Beneche, Laurie Eustis, Olivia Thacher, and Frances Carpenter; Mary Sloane, who is the best person with whom to spend a Friday evening of knitting and wine; and my mother-in-law, Lorraine Adrain, who brought me yarn and knitting advice. Of course, all my nonknitting friends deserve thanks for putting up with my obsession.

Many books were consulted in my pursuit of learning to knit and in the writing of this book to be sure I got the details right. These include:
The Knitting Sutra
, by Susan Gordon Lydon;
Zen and the Art of Knitting
, by Bernadette Murphy;
The Joy of Knitting
, by Lisa R. Myers;
Knitting Pretty
by Kris Percival;
A Passion for Knitting
, by Nancy J. Thomas and Ilana Rabinowitz; Elizabeth Zimmermann’s
Knitter’s Almanac
; and
The Complete Guide to Modern Knitting and Crocheting
, by Alice Carroll, which was published in 1942 and provided much of the knitting history and lore from that time for the character of Big Alice.

My special thanks to Helen Schulman, who would drive for hours to give me a hug when I needed it, accepted my knitted gifts, and whose love has no bounds. For reading and rereading, thanks to Joanne Brownstein, Marianne Merola, and my guardian angel Gail Hochman; my wise editor, Jill Bialosky; and the corporation of Yaddo for the space and time to write.

Finally, my family is my strength: June Caycedo, Gloria Hood, and Melissa Hood; Ariane Adrain; and the cousins: how did I get so lucky to have all of them? And my wonderful husband Lorne Adrain and son Sam Adrain, whose love for me is what gets me through. Thank you, too, to Annabelle Adrain for finding her way to us. Every day, when I knit, I am sending all my love to Auntie Angie, Auntie Rosie, my brother Skip Hood, my father Lloyd Hood; and most especially, my beautiful, smart and funny daughter, Grace Adrain.

THE KNITTING CIRCLE

Ann Hood

READING GROUP GUIDE

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

This novel is very special to me. A few years ago I was afraid I would never be able to write again. For my entire life, reading and writing were ways to work out what I felt, what I worried about, what I feared, what I hoped for. Then on April 18, 2002, my five-year-old daughter, Grace, died suddenly from a virulent form of strep. As an added insult, when I lost Grace I also lost my ability to use words. I couldn't read and I couldn't write. Letters didn't come together to make words; sentences did not make sense. I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't focus.

Almost two years later, the literary journal
Tin House
sent out a request to writers for submissions for their theme issue on lying. That night—I was unable to sleep well and was often up walking around the house at all hours—an essay came to me fully developed on the lies about grief. I sat down and wrote it, and
Tin House
published it.

That essay opened the door back to writing for me. During that time when I wasn't reading or writing, I learned how to knit. Knitting, I believe, saved my life. But it also introduced me to a new world of yarn and colors and textures and of people. Sitting in various knitting circles, I slowly learned that knitting had rescued other women too. Bad marriages, illness, addiction—knitting gave comfort and even hope through life's trials.

Once I began to write again, a novel about women in a knitting circle began to take shape. The old adage “Write what you know” is true, but I like the writer Grace Paley's version even better: “Write what you don't know about what you know.” With that in mind, I began to read books about knitting history, knitting poetry, knitting everything! I gave my protagonist, Mary, the loss of her only child, and then surrounded her with women who, while teaching her to knit, also tell her their own stories of love and loss and recovery.

The women in this fictitious knitting circle became as real to me as those strangers I sat knitting with after I lost Grace. Each of their stories is told in their own voice, and each story moves Mary along in her grieving process.

This novel is important to me as a writer, as a woman, as a mother, and as a knitter. I hope you find comfort and hope—and even knitting tips!—as you read
The Knitting Circle
.

—Ann Hood

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. “Time heals all wounds.” So goes an old saying. How does time affect the process of mourning as witnessed in the lives of the women in
   The Knitting Circle
   ?
   
2. What is it about knitting that makes the activity so therapeutic?
   
3. Describe the different reactions to loss experienced by the various characters in the novel. What do they hold in common? What makes each individual’s situation unique?
   
4. Mary frequently reacts to others with feelings of envy and bitterness at their good fortune, from Beth to Jessica. What insecurities on Mary’s part are revealed in her interactions with other characters in the novel?
   
5. Is Mary too self-indulgent when it comes to emerging from her grief?
   
6. Describe the importance of forgiveness in the healing processes of the characters in
   The Knitting Circle
   .
   
7. Why does it take so long for Mamie to open up to her daughter about her earlier difficulties in life? Is she entirely to blame for her reticence, or is Mary partly responsible as well?
   
8. How is Mary’s troubled relationship with Mamie manifested in her grief over Stella?
   
9. How does Mary and Dylan’s understanding of the bond of marriage evolve over the course of the novel?
   
10. Why doesn’t Mary’s relationship with Connor last?
    
11. In times of distress, Mary’s impulse is often to avoid others. What is the appeal of not discussing our emotional difficulties?
    
12. How important is it to the women at Big Alice’s Sit and Knit that theirs is a female-dominated knitting circle?
    
13. How are the boundaries of family redefined for Mary in the years after Stella’s death?
    
14. Toward the end of
    The Knitting Circle
    , how is Mary’s involvement with Holly’s baby different from what it might have been at the novel’s beginning?
    
15. Does Mary’s recounting of Stella’s death before her friends signify her full recovery from her loss? What more healing remains to be done after the novel’s close?
    

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