The Fisherman's Quilt

by Margaret Doyle

In The Fisherman's Quilt, Nora Hunter arrives in Alaska with her fisherman husband and new baby. She brings her first, fancy quilt to Alaska, along with an idealistic vision of life on America's last... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0976109905
• ISBN13: 9780976109907
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: Port Gamble Publishing
• Length: 289 Pages

Customer Reviews

A great read!

I picked up this book at a local folklife festival. I don't normally enjoy novels and had some doubts about this one. But I was looking for a good read and books are a weakness for me! I was not disappointed in the least! This was a great read that just got better and better! I have passed the book on to a friend who spent the first years of her married life in Alaska with her husband. Both were trying to make some money. She said it is so amazingly depicting of their own life up there. I found myself absorbed in trying to decide whether the marriage of Matt and Nora would make it or not. And whether it truly should. I wonder if Nora's husband ever woke up to what he lost! For his sake, I hope so! I absolutely did not find that the people in Kodiak were depicted in a negative light. I highly recommend this book! It reads like a memoir. Who can go wrong in writing their own thoughts and feelings and experiences. I hope this book has a sequel. I'd like to know the rest of the story!

Great Read

The Fisherman's Quilt was a great read. I have a long-standing interest in Alaska and I thought the story gave me an enjoyable and very believable glimpse of what it would be like to live in a small Alaskan fishing town - the adventure and beauty but also the isolation and loneliness. In the book, I felt I met a real person, Nora, a romantic who gradually comes to terms with the hard realities of adult life as she struggles to raise a family in Alaska. I do not generally read novels but the book rang so true it was like reading non-fiction.

The ring of truth

A wonderful story. I enjoyed Nora's pluck, her marvelous internal monologues that had such immediacy about them; her crazy friends, her busy and boisterous little children. Having travelled and lived in remote places, I identified with Nora's sense of isolation; desperation, and "war-time" humor. Margaret Doyle's words have the ring of truth. I loved this book. Carol Nickisher, author of Riding the Reef - a Pan American Adventure, with Love.

An Alaskan patchwork of love, jelousy, hurt, betrayal - it has it all.

Great "reality fiction" that reflects the disintegration of a marriage and the emerging inner strength of a woman faced with a lonely life in an Alaskan fishing community. I enjoyed Doyle's use of the quilts as a framework, a metaphor for the events in Nora's life. The dialog is as natural as scales on a fish, the descriptions as vivid as a Kodiak sunset. An excellent book for women's discussion groups and, although it's not about quilting, that might be fun to try while talking about the dynamics of this marriage.

This book tells it like it is

I was blown away by the honesty and reality of this book. It tells the story of a young fisherman's wife who follows her husband to Alaska, and is left alone with her baby daughter to find her way in the wild town of Kodiak. Her husband is obsessively ambitious and jealous to boot, so she's by herself in dealing with her loneliness, her insecurity about being a good wife and mother, and the craziness of the town. Eventually she forms a quilting group, but this novel isn't about quilting, it's about community and finding yourself and believing in yourself. It's about how Nora Hunter gave her power away to her husband, and got it back for herself and her family. Rough language and true-to-the-times parenting may bother some readers.