The Friday Night Knitting Club
Kate Jacobs (Hodder and Stoughton)
ISBN 978-0-3409229-4/AUD$32.95
Friday nights at fictional Manhattan knitting store Walker and Daughter mean knitting and chat, technical help from Anita, gorgeous yarns chosen by store owner/single mum Georgia Walker and goodies baked by her preteen daughter Dakota.
But from these beginnings as a casual drop-in night the club becomes much more: a place to make friends and find the love and support of knitting sisters as the regulars face loneliness, unemployment, divorce and even cancer.
Canadian author and knitter Kate Jacobs, a former New York magazine editor now living in California, delivers a warm and sharply observed story of both knitting and knitters. Its yarn descriptions are luscious, its characters credible and well drawn, the women's stories stitched together with affection by one who understands the power of needles and yarn. Each part begins with a journal extract musing on the nature, satisfactions and challenges of knitting.
The novel's subtitle ('It's fun to stitch and bitch') flags its target market, and its appendix rewards them with not only a recipe (for Dakota's fruit muffins) but also a pattern for a simple scarf (made by beginner knitter Darwin). It's all heart-warming—and heart-rending. Keep the tissues close at hand, as Jacobs surprises by spurning the expected chocolate-box ending.
—Sue Green