Stigmata

When Lizzie Du Bose inherits a handmade quilt willed to her by a maternal grandmother she has never met, her life is forever changed. The figures sewn into the quilt tell the stories of Lizzie's grandmother Grace, and Grace's grandmother Ayo, who was abducted from Africa as a girl and sent as a slave to America. As Lizzie learns, the quilt seems to hold the key to a past that haunts her, at first through terrifyingly lifelike dreams, and finally through visions that seem to take Lizzie back in time, fusing her own life with the lives of Grace and Ayo.

One night, Lizzie awakens to find the quilt soaked in blood, and discovers horrible wounds on her wrists and back. Wracked with pain, Lizzie has no memory of having harmed herself, but she believes Ayo's manacle scars have appeared on her own body -- as real an inheritance as Grace's quilt. Now Lizzie must decide whether she has begun a descent into madness, or made an extraordinary connection to the past. A compelling and utterly intriguing tale, Stigmata weaves together the stories of three women at once blessed with a powerful vision, and cursed by a shared legacy of slavery, pain, and struggle.

Author: Phyllis Alesia Perry
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 08/03/1998
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.59h x 6.02w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780786864089

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 06/15/1998 pg. 43
Kirkus Reviews 06/15/1998 pg. 838
Booklist 08/01/1998 pg. 1966
Booklist 11/15/1998 pg. 570

About the Author
Phyllis Alesia Perry is an award-winning newspaper editor and author of the novel Stigmata. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.