A Purple Thread for Sky

by Carol Bruneau

For the irrepressible Lucinda Hammond, her place behind the cash register of a run-down convenience store in Arcadia, Nova Scotia, offers a wide window onto an improbably hopeful world. For three generations the store has sustained Lucinda's family, and these three generations share the narration of this poignant, joyous novel that spans more than one hundred years.Carol Bruneau unfolds the story of Lucinda and her forebears in a trio of beautifully articulated, interwoven voices: Blunt and funny, Lucinda copes with the store's declining sales and her middle-age anxiety, even as she discovers her heart racing ahead of her tongue when she's unexpectedly courted by a burly construction boss named Wilf. Aunt Ruby at ninety has fallen under dementia's sway, yet she remains utterly lucid in her own mind as she recalls her length of days and wraps herself in a wondrous quilt sewn by her mother, Euphemia. Decades earlier, this matriarch threaded hope into the quilt's purple sky, and in a weathered ledger book she recorded, alongside the store's daily receipts, her family's most surprising secrets.

Rich in narrative and ravishing in its prose, this wise novel binds together the intimate testaments of its three strong women as it speaks volumes about memory, desire, and the human heart.

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Carol Bruneau is the author of nine books: three short fiction collections and six novels, including Brighten the Corner Where You Are (Fall 2020) and A Circle on the Surface (2018.) Her first novel, Purple for Sky, won the 2001 Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the Dartmouth Book Award. She lives with her husband in Halifax.

Reviews

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like this book; my favorite voice was of Effie's. Lucinda's was hard to get into, I felt like it was broken up. Ruby's was just sad. I really didn't care for the ending. I know it had to be done, but it was heartbreaking. I thought Wilf was a little weird.

[Valli Ostrowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It was like a comfortable chair for me. I just enjoyed the read and didn't care if anything actually happened.

[ERIC FRY · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Lucinda's story as well as the voice of Ruby. It got a little confusing when the book jumped to the story of Ruby's mother and it made me skip pages which I hate to do. Still, it ended well.

[Adaire · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one I spotted while just browsing the shelves at the library. I would have given it 2.5 stars. The story is about three generations of women and their secrets. Predictable secrets. The life stories are presented in a disconnected way that didn't lead me to really connect with any of them.

[Rene]

Chick lit. Heavy on the quilting

[Sheri Bauer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really tried to like this story. Quilt stories are usually my favorites, but this one just didn't make it.