Threads, by Edie Ayala

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Threads, by Edie Ayala

1LyndaInOregon
juny 8, 2022, 4:37 pm

Disclaimer: An electronic copy of this book was provided in exchange for review by publishers Stories With Character, via Library Thing.

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This odd little novel bounces between an affluent British Columbia town and a poverty-stalked village in Chile, following the threads that connect them. It’s about being crushed by the loss of that which is vital and of being crushed by the abundance of that which is not.

Ayala flirts with magical realism here, takes a couple of swipes at New Age Paganism, and frowns severely at first-world consumerism – specifically at fast fashion which gobbles up resources to produce shoddy goods intended for ultra-short-term use and then dumps them, often disguised as charity, on third-world markets where much of the volume ends up in landfills or roadside dumps. Overall, it’s an ambitious project that only partially succeeds.

The three main characters are Irene, a young woman who has married for security and is now reconsidering the bargain, Columba, a Chilean single mother scrambling to keep her family fed, and Gavin, a young man not sure what direction he wants his life to take. Each character narrates multiple chapters, with guest appearances from time to time by supporting players in the narrative. Each of the three suffers an irreparable loss, and each must deal with it in their own way.

Irene, whose actions form the underlying propulsion for the plot, turns to knitting and crocheting – specifically to the creation of exquisite, one-of-a-kind children’s sweaters, which she uses as a barricade against the painful world. When her family, fearing that this activity has become an unhealthy compulsion, cleans out her stash, they give the sweaters to a dicey charity drop run by Gavin as a sideline to the men’s clothing business he has inherited from his father. By this time, Gavin has become a savvy businessman, which means he knows a profitable product when he sees it, and all but one of the sweaters gets diverted for resale. The lone survivor ends up in a legitimate load of clothing donations bound for Chile, where Columba – dealing with a heartbreaking loss of her own – gets her hands on it and elevates it to near-religious stature. Thus these three characters, along with their friends and family, are bound by unseen threads. The connection plays back and forth until the somewhat abrupt and unsatisfying conclusion in which – if we may be allowed just one knitterly pun – everything just comes unraveled for Irene to no particular point while Gavin and Columba carry on with their lives as usual.

Ayala has an eye for effective metaphor, and the occasional typo or clumsy construction never rises above the level of minor annoyance, but this is definitely a novel in search of a meaningful climax. (And if we may be permitted two observations: One, wool is a flame-resistant fabric; and two – as a knitter, this reviewer would kill for actual patterns to the sweaters as described.)