Unravelling - by Elizabeth Graver (Paperback)

About the Book

In a beautifully realized debut novel reminiscent of "The Scarlet Letter, " an unconventional young woman who chooses independence over conformity is scorned by her family in a 19th-century New England town.

Book Synopsis

From a small, bogside cabin in rural New England, 38-year-old Aimee Slater unravels the story of her life, attempting to make sense of the tangled thread that leads from her mother's house-a short, unbridgeable distance away-to the world she now inhabits. It is soon after the Civil War; Aimee lives alone, but is graced with visits from two friends, a crippled man and a troubled eleven-year-old girl. She is perpetually caught between the sensual world she so desires and the divine retribution passed down to her by her mother's scorn. How Aimee ultimately creates a life for herself and bridges that distance makes for a moving story of love and loss. Told in a voice of spare New England lyricism, Unravelling is a remarkably haunting account of the power of redemption.

Review Quotes

"Like Margaret Atwood in Alias Grace, Elizabeth Graver examines what happens when a nineteenth-century woman defies the conventions of her place and time. . . . This tender, thoughtful novel pays tribute to the way a woman can ultimately patch together her crazy quilt of independence and fulfillment."-Glamour
"A pleasure, quiet and increasingly gripping. In images as simple and specific as that of Aimee's blind rabbit sniffing its salt lick, Graver endows the habits of coping with a profound dignity."-The New Yorker
"This beautiful novel captures the bittersweet relationship between mothers and daughters, where what is not said is just as important as what is."-Seventeen
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