Wild Card Quilt

“Alive with good imagery and colorful characters … Janisse Ray is a born advocate, defending, among other things, rivers and streams, the civil rights movement, old houses, community schools, organic gardening and small towns. Hometowns, she understands, are worth saving.”

“Janisse Ray returns after seventeen years to her native Baxley, Georgia, to rebuild her life. In the process, this passionate environmentalist and community advocate comes to rebuild so much more.”

“Marvelous … Whether stitching a quilt, boiling syrup, planting seeds or wading in a swamp, her attention to what really matters never strays. Community, family and sustainable existence respectful of the natural world are her lodestars. Janisse Ray has a lot of heart, and, thankfully, she’s not afraid to let it show.”

“Episodic stories told on a scale that makes the raw beauty of an imperfect place shine … Piece by small piece Wild Card Quilt works to counteract what Janisse Ray calls ‘the cultural poverty’ of a rural place.”

“A fine introduction to elemental truths about a region and its people … Real Southerners, even those a generation or two away from the farm, will see their kin in Janisse Ray’s depictions.”

“Her memoir isn’t a social critique or a utopian communitarian vision. Rather, Janisse Ray’s somewhat Quixotic attempt to connect with her roots is told in the tone of wistfulness and quiet hopefulness, occasionally broken by sharp humor.”