AN AMERICAN QUILT Unfolding a Story of Family and Slavery

Carrington MacDuffie narrates this work of creative nonfiction. As the author researched the history of a quilt that had traveled from South Carolina to Rhode Island, she managed to trace the American slavery system south to north, and back again. Due to lack of documentation, May had to imagine lives for the enslaved people she found through the quilt, while the lives of their owners were well documented in letters, official documents, and their homes. The text begs for more emotion from the narrator. MacDuffie doesn't do justice to the exhaustive research May carried out--archival research into slave narratives and trips to different states and to Cuba. Nonetheless, this is a worthwhile listen, unspooling real and imagined lives from an unfinished quilt. M.P.P. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2018]