Stigmata (Paperback)

Amazon.co.uk Review
Another contribution to the growing body of Afro-American fictions on women's experience of slavery as a site of traumatic, intergenerational memory, Phyllis Berry's debut novel, Stigmata is an extended meditation on how the pain and horrors of that past continue to surround and consume the lives we inhabit. That tale of possession is told through the uncanny memories and physical traumas or stigmata of 14-year-old Lizzie, who is literally, bizarrely, transformed by the voices and lives of her great grandmother Ayo and her grandmother, Grace, whom she mimics so exactly she becomes them both at the story's end. Told in a series of flashbacks, Berry skilfully weaves stories of Lizzie's present and her various pasts, switching seamlessly from her extended incarceration in a mental institution, to the shadowy, often strangely enigmatic, unfocused scenes of Ayo's life in slavery and back again to the present as Lizzie finally comes to terms with her memories. Like the metaphor of memory at the heart of these stories, narrative form is reflected in the commemorative and memorial quilt Lizzie and her mother are making of Grace's life--a process which allows both of them to begin imagining, recollecting and re-experiencing their now reverse roles of mother and daughter, as well as re-imagining the secret, inner intimacies of memory itself. Quilts, like memory, are the main records here of a history of unspeakable, unimaginable loss. --David Marriott --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
Stigmata is an imaginative and graceful exploration of family memory and of ghosts that return to haunt generation after generation. Lizzie is an averagely middle-class African-American teenager, until she inherits a trunk containing the effects of her late maternal grandmother, who fled the family home in mysterious circumstances when her mother was a child. The handmade quilt she finds in the trunk catapults her into a strange world where she begins to inhabit not only the body of her grandmother, but that of her great-grandmother, who was brought to America on a slave ship and suffered brutal mistreatment. When her ancestor's shackles begin to make physical wounds on Lizzie's skin, she is admitted to a psychiatric unit. Stigmata tells the story of her recovery and redemption. This is an astounding, harrowing first novel. (Kirkus UK)

See all Product Description

5 Reviews 5 star:  (1) 4 star:  (1) 3 star:  (2) 2 star:  (1) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 3.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars A lucidly-written book to savour slowly, 5 Nov 1999 By  R. L. Smith - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    This is a brilliant book. Written in a deceptively simple style, it is best read slowly. Although it deals with five generations of women, and the essential storyline is greatly complicated by the theme of reincarnation, there is no confusion. The author has a perfect grasp of her material and conveys it with immediacy and great emotional authenticity. The familiar motif of a hand-made quilt gives the book another dimension of great appeal. The 'Deep South' setting, with slavery and racial abuses, while important, is not obtrusive - this story could be set anywhere and any time with equal effectiveness. A beautiful novel, deserving a very wide readership Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: 3.0 out of 5 stars Poignant memory continuance through generations, 23 Sep 1999 By A Customer Stigmata normally refers to the imprint of Christ's wounds found on believers' bodies. In this tale, it refers to the manifestation on Lizzie of the voice and trauma of her grandmother, Grace and the voice, slave chains and whippings from the life of her great grandmother, Ayo. The pain and terrors of their lives inflict themselves onto Lizzie to such an extent that her family have her committed to a mental institution thinking she has attempted suicide. There she continues her struggles with these experiences that transformed her into her ancestors. After meeting a priest, a hospital visitor, who listens and introduces to her the concept of stigmata, she eventually returns home to her family. She decides to tell Grace's story of why she left her husband and young family when she could not cope with the voices and memories herself. She does this in a typically American way by designing and sewing a quilt. The book interweaves Lizzie's life with those of Ayo and Grace. It shows how the horrors of the past can build up and continue to affect people's lives today. There is an analogy here between the applique technique used in quilting - where multiple pieces of cloth are used to build up a picture that tells a story - and these multiple life experiences from Lizzie and her ancestors stories. Whether Ayo and Grace or their memories are reincarnated as Lizzie, she has to come to terms with her roots, her past, their roots, their pasts in order to have her own life. I suspect many African Americans have done this. I can relate to the importance of finding your roots as an individual, especially if you have grown up without the usual roots of family. For example if you have lost your parents at an early age, or been adopted, you would have ended up living in a different place to where you would have been living, being a different person to the person you would have been if these events had not occurred. Likewise, on a group basis. In the case of African Americans, the whole group has to come to terms with who they are and why they are who they are from living in a different place, being a different people than they started out as. The quilt is an interesting Americanism. From quilts that provide an intergenerational memory of a particular family's history to the quilts done as memorials to Aids victims, Americans pour their souls out into this medium. It serves as a collective memory and psychoanalysis session. So it is not surprising that Lizzie choses this way to convey Grace's story. For all these reasons I can imagine that this book will become a winner in the US providing reading groups there with hours of thought provoking discussions, but probably won't be such a hot book here in Europe, although I enjoyed it and hope other European readers do as well. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   3.0 out of 5 stars Good idea but too underdeveloped, 30 Mar 2009 By  Hayles "Hayles" (England) - See all my reviews The premise of this book is really orginial - taking the religious idea of stigmata and giving it a secular setting amongst the backdrop of slavery and racial tensions. However all the ideas just seem to be developed when the book suddenly comes to an end. There is so much more that could have been explored about themes of madness, dreams, beliefs as well as the historical settings that are touched upon. The writing style is easy to read and enjoyable so it seems like such a wasted opportunity that this novel is so short. Left me wanting more and with too many unanswered questions and underdeveloped ideas to be truly satisfying Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 5 customer reviews...		Most Recent Customer Reviews 4.0 out of 5 stars How would it work? When i saw this book, I wondered how it would work. How could the author pull it off, having the main character, Lizzie, being herself plus being the reincarnation of her... Read more Published on 26 Jun 2001 2.0 out of 5 stars Atarts out well but doesn't deliver You can't get much trendier at the moment than quilting and reincarnation, but that wasn't the reason I disliked this book. Read more Published on 17 Mar 2000 Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews › See all 5 customer reviews...

• Books > Fiction > By Period

• Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
• I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
• I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.