Patchwork

by Karen Osborn

This stunning first novel describes a complex world of domestic disharmony, forbidden love, and family secrets festering through generations. In alternating voices, two sisters and the daughter of a third piece together their family's history in a South Carolina mill town. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

Genres: Fiction

324 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1991

About the author

Karen Osborn is the author of five novels, Patchwork, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Between Earth and Sky, The River Road, Centerville, winner of the Independent Publishers Gold Award, and The Music Book, which is newly published. In reviews, she’s been compared to Ian McEwan, Jodi Picoult, and Russell Banks. The New York Times has called her work, “psychologically sophisticated,” and The Washington Post has said her writing is “an extraordinary effort to engage the American condition as we find it now.” She teaches fiction writing in Fairfield University’s M.F.A. program.

Reviews

[Suanne Laqueur]

This was pure hidden treasure. It fell off the library shelf when I was reaching for something else. I'm so glad I took it home with me. Osborn has pieced a quilt of female voices, each unique and compelling. It’s not a dramatic story, but I couldn’t put it down.

[dead letter office]

Lily, Rose, June.

In the end you feel you know them, and they feel real. That's something. I'll read more by her.