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The Experiments
Advance praise for The Experiments (a legend in pictures & words) by Rachel May... Rachel May blends the sensuous and the violent into forceful narratives that refuse to settle neatly down. Instead, they stick out, don't quite match up, and shuffle restlessly around in the most exciting and satisfying ways-just as her sewn collages do, in clashing prints and riotous colors-and all in quest of identity, in trying to put a name to it all, a name that goes beyond language, that demands the vividly visual, that demands the tangible. This book puts it in our hands. -Cole Swensen
98 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 2015
7 people want to read
About the author
Rachel May
6 books10 followersRachel May is the author of An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family & Slavery (Booklist starred review), The Experiments: A Legend in Pictures & Words, a collection of sewn images and fiction, The Benedictines: A Novel, and Quilting with a Modern Slant, a Library Journal & Amazon.com Best Book of 2014. Work has been recently published or is forthcoming in 1913: A Journal of Forms, The Volta, New Delta Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Cream City Review, Indiana Review, Sleepingfish, Word for/Word, The Literary Review, EOAGH, and other journals.
She's an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Northern Michigan University and has been awarded residencies at the VCCA, The Vermont Studio Center and The Millay Colony.
“With precise stitch and complex patterning, Rachel May pieces together an intricate story of a family, the people that family enslaved, a writer, and a country. With as much lyrical beauty as the quilts themselves, May ties together the myriad ways the treatment of enslaved people is sewn into the fabric of our country. This book gives long-overdue credit to quilt-making and May deserves much credit for stitching this beautiful book together.”
- Nicole Walker, author of Egg, Micrograms, Quench your Thirst with Salt
"In An American Quilt, Rachel May is able to draw out the entire story of southern slavery and northern complicity from a remarkable discovery--a quilt top created in Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1830s, and a notebook containing a cache of letters associated with it. From these materials, May weaves an extraordinary account of the families of the quilt makers--a Rhode Island woman descended from slave traders and the slave-holding husband who had brought her South to live. She also is able to invoke the lives of the enslaved population whose labor produced the cotton of which the quilt top was made--which fueled the rise of the New England textile industry. This is a terrific story, well researched and beautifully written, that both reveals the history associated with the quilt top and traces the author's efforts to unearth it."
- Joanne Pope Melish, author of Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and 'Race' in New England, 1789-1860
"An American Quilt cleverly weaves together the disparate fields of material cultural, northern industrialization, mercantilism, trade and slavery. Through deeply a researched history of quilter Susan Crouch, May reveals the multifaceted economic and personal relations between northern textile manufacturers and southern enslavers. Moreover, May reminds us that the handmade quilts of white antebellum slave-holding and non-slave-holding women carry unlikely histories, including those of enslaved African Americans whose labor and stories are usually unacknowledged or overlooked in traditional accounts of American quilting."
- Christy Clark-Pujra, Associate Professor of History in the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; author of Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island (NYU)
“May follows the footsteps of Linda Lipsett and Cuesta Benberry, who revealed a more thorough picture of the contribution the African American quilt maker. These stories need to be shared over and over again and Rachel May does so brilliantly, intelligently, and with care. The history of enslaved people and today’s on-going racism is not glossed over in this deeply researched and beautifully written text. An American Quilt is a major contribution to the multilayered and complex history of quilt making in America.”
- Roderick Kiracofe, author Unconventional & Unexpected (among other books on the art and history of quilts) & art collector
"Do yourself a favor and suggest An American Quilt for your book group or quilting bee because it’s the perfect read to discuss with quilters and bibliophiles alike.The breadth and details in this book are as fascinating as the true story that forms the skeleton of
She's an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Northern Michigan University and has been awarded residencies at the VCCA, The Vermont Studio Center and The Millay Colony.
“With precise stitch and complex patterning, Rachel May pieces together an intricate story of a family, the people that family enslaved, a writer, and a country. With as much lyrical beauty as the quilts themselves, May ties together the myriad ways the treatment of enslaved people is sewn into the fabric of our country. This book gives long-overdue credit to quilt-making and May deserves much credit for stitching this beautiful book together.”
- Nicole Walker, author of Egg, Micrograms, Quench your Thirst with Salt
"In An American Quilt, Rachel May is able to draw out the entire story of southern slavery and northern complicity from a remarkable discovery--a quilt top created in Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1830s, and a notebook containing a cache of letters associated with it. From these materials, May weaves an extraordinary account of the families of the quilt makers--a Rhode Island woman descended from slave traders and the slave-holding husband who had brought her South to live. She also is able to invoke the lives of the enslaved population whose labor produced the cotton of which the quilt top was made--which fueled the rise of the New England textile industry. This is a terrific story, well researched and beautifully written, that both reveals the history associated with the quilt top and traces the author's efforts to unearth it."
- Joanne Pope Melish, author of Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and 'Race' in New England, 1789-1860
"An American Quilt cleverly weaves together the disparate fields of material cultural, northern industrialization, mercantilism, trade and slavery. Through deeply a researched history of quilter Susan Crouch, May reveals the multifaceted economic and personal relations between northern textile manufacturers and southern enslavers. Moreover, May reminds us that the handmade quilts of white antebellum slave-holding and non-slave-holding women carry unlikely histories, including those of enslaved African Americans whose labor and stories are usually unacknowledged or overlooked in traditional accounts of American quilting."
- Christy Clark-Pujra, Associate Professor of History in the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; author of Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island (NYU)
“May follows the footsteps of Linda Lipsett and Cuesta Benberry, who revealed a more thorough picture of the contribution the African American quilt maker. These stories need to be shared over and over again and Rachel May does so brilliantly, intelligently, and with care. The history of enslaved people and today’s on-going racism is not glossed over in this deeply researched and beautifully written text. An American Quilt is a major contribution to the multilayered and complex history of quilt making in America.”
- Roderick Kiracofe, author Unconventional & Unexpected (among other books on the art and history of quilts) & art collector
"Do yourself a favor and suggest An American Quilt for your book group or quilting bee because it’s the perfect read to discuss with quilters and bibliophiles alike.The breadth and details in this book are as fascinating as the true story that forms the skeleton of
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