My mother picked this book – based on the cover and truth be told I would have picked it too. It’s been sitting in my pile for a while and I’ve overlooked it several times. However, once I started I was hooked. It’s a gentle story about loss, grief, guilt and redemption.
Here’s the blurb …
‘It was so long ago. The person he was then no longer existed. What was he supposed to say to this … this interloper who had materialised on his doorstep? Crouching down on his haunches, he poked at the fire and looked at her covertly from under his eyebrows. She was obviously waiting for him to say something. He frowned. There was something not quite right … What was it?’
Moss has run away from Melbourne to Opportunity on the trail of a man she knows only by name. But her arrival sets in train events that disturb the long-held secrets of three of the town’s inhabitants; Finn, a brilliant mathematician, who has become a recluse; Lily Pargetter, eight-three year old knitter of tea cosies; and Sandy, the town buffoon, who dreams of a Great Galah.
It is only as Moss, Finn, Lily and Sandy develop unlikely friendships that they find a way to lay their sorrows to rest and knit together the threads that will restore them to life.
Moss has two mothers and no father. When she discovers the secret of her conception she breaks off contact with one of her mothers and goes in search of her father. Finn, who was once called Michael, was involved in a dreadful accident and hasn’t been able to forgive himself. Lily’s husband was killed during the war and their child was still born. Sandy’s father abused his mother and he did nothing. These four people are lost, lonely and guilty, but through simple acts of kindness to one another they heal themselves and create a new family.
Dark things have happened to these people – particularly Lily – but this novel focuses on what happens after the event. How people move forwards (or not) and how to make amends.
I loved the story of Lily, her tea cosies and the ‘quartermaster of the United Nations’ and Sandy and his desire to build the Great Galah tourist attraction (a bit like the big pineapple). I didn’t want to put this novel down. I wanted to know how all the stories merged (or knitted) together and would they all find peace and happiness?
Here are some other reviews …
http://alainereading.blogspot.com/2010/05/book-of-lost-threads-by-tess-evans.html
http://www.australianwomenonline.com/book-review-book-of-lost-threads-by-tess-evans/
http://mandythebookworm.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/review-of-book-of-lost-threads-by-tess-evans/