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Patchwork: A Memoir of Love and Loss
A wife and mother of a grown son and two teen daughters, a woman enjoying her career and life, Mary Jo Doig wants nothing more from life than to live out her days embraced by the deep roots of family, friends, and her community. Tightly wrapped in a life-long protective cocoon, she has no idea how wounded she is—until, on one starless night following the death of a relative, she has a flashback that opens a dark passageway back to her childhood and the horrific secrets buried deep inside her psyche.
Part mystery and part inspirational memoir, Patchwork is the riveting story of one woman who strived to live a life full of love, only to endure tragedies with two of her children and struggles in her marriages—the consequences of a mysterious life-long behavior unnoticed by her family or teachers. Like a needle stitching together a quilt, the memories Mary Jo recovers following her first flashback show her why her early years were threaded with a need to be invisible, as well as core beliefs that she was stupid, not good enough, and vastly different from her peers. Shattered by these revelations, overcome by depression, hopelessness, and a loss of trust in others, Mary Jo embarks on a healing journey through the underground of her life that ultimately leads to transformation.
Part mystery and part inspirational memoir, Patchwork is the riveting story of one woman who strived to live a life full of love, only to endure tragedies with two of her children and struggles in her marriages—the consequences of a mysterious life-long behavior unnoticed by her family or teachers. Like a needle stitching together a quilt, the memories Mary Jo recovers following her first flashback show her why her early years were threaded with a need to be invisible, as well as core beliefs that she was stupid, not good enough, and vastly different from her peers. Shattered by these revelations, overcome by depression, hopelessness, and a loss of trust in others, Mary Jo embarks on a healing journey through the underground of her life that ultimately leads to transformation.
- GenresMystery
346 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 23, 2018
4 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Mary Jo Doig
2 books11 followersMary Jo Doig has been editing life-writing and facilitating women’s writing circles for 20 years. Her stories have been published in Inside and Out: Women’s Truths, Women’s Stories and Kitchen Table Stories.
Mary Jo writes in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where she enjoys quilting, gardening, hiking, and spending time with friends, family & her rescue pets.
Patchwork is her first book.
Mary Jo writes in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where she enjoys quilting, gardening, hiking, and spending time with friends, family & her rescue pets.
Patchwork is her first book.
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October 24, 2018
In this honest heartfelt story, debut author Mary Jo Doig recalls dealing with adversity associated with family life, crushing grief-- and the therapeutic process of memory recall in: “Patchwork: A Memoir of Love and Loss” Within her small rural farming community, Mary Jo learned the craft of fine quilting, and patchwork fabric blocks were joined together to represent significant times, events, and the people that shared her life story.
After moving several times, Mary Jo’s parents bought a home in a Long Island, N.Y. community--her mother wanted to live near her parents to get help raising the couple’s small daughters: her husband traveled frequently with various jobs (1941—55). Mary Jo (b.1942-) was the oldest of three girls. Jackie was developmentally disabled, Mary Jo and Bonnie helped with their sister’s care. It seemed like her parents did their best to provide income and stability, though they eventually divorced. Mary Jo also recalled interesting cultural facts, events, and popular music from the 1950’s and 60’s.
Following her high school graduation (1959), Mary Jo’s sweetheart Cliff, suddenly broke-up with her. At Oneonta, N.Y. Mary Jo attended college, she received a letter from Cliff wanting to resume their relationship; he had joined the Navy. After she and Cliff reunited, Mary Jo learned she was pregnant, and they were married—following the cultural norms and expectations. The loss of their daughter Jocelyn, born prematurely with birth defects was terribly sad. This was only a beginning, more loss would follow after the arrival of the couple’s son’s Clifford Stephen III, or “Chip” (1963-) and Keith Gregory (1965-73).
After Cliff shamelessly abandoned Mary Jo and their young sons, Mary Jo was determined to return to college to complete her education. This was one of the best decisions she ever made. Eventually she would become a social worker and assist in the care of developmentally disabled adults.
On June 29, 1973 Mary Jo married Don, 28, a quiet gentle man who owned a rural 170 acre family farm in Bovina Center, N.Y. Mary Jo marveled at the beauty of the land, the farm fresh foods, close-knit community, and joined Don’s Presbyterian church, despite her misgivings about leaving her Catholic faith. The couple had two daughters, Polly Anne (1977-) and Susan Emily (1979-). Mary Jo felt deeply connected to the farming community, joined the farmwives in quilting clubs, entered cooking contests with her daughters in county fairs, and was elected as the town clerk. It was necessary for her to return to work, the income raised in farming wasn’t enough to deep the family afloat. Mary Jo was the only farmwife that had outside employment.
With a recommendation from the pastor of her church, Mary Jo sought therapy for severe anxiety that led to panic attacks and eventually a paralyzing depression. It was apparent she had endured unbearable hardship and loss: two children, the death of her beloved mother-in-law, the deaths of her father and uncle. With a full time employment and helping Don run the farm— she worked herself to the bone.
Mary Jo read an article in Newsweek Magazine that had a story about presidential candidate Bill Clinton, and another feature titled: “Surviving Incest: Can Memories be Trusted?” (October 7, 1991). An entire therapeutic movement was about to be unleashed that would eventually affect over a million of (mostly) American women and their families. Recovered Memory Therapy (RMT) is highly controversial, and is not listed in the DSM-V (2013), nor a recognized or approved treatment by the American Psychological Association. When I realized RMT was part of Mary Jo’s story, I offered this book to a friend of mine, (who is a PhD psychologist and an award winning author) hoping she would be interested in offering any insight-- she kindly replied: “I’ll read your review.”
The methods used by therapists to recover repressed memories included inner child work, body work, dream work, guided imagery, hypnosis etc.-- were questionable. The impossibility of establishing truth from memories recovered from infancy and early childhood are well documented in scientific studies and research. One the main components of RMT included the hyper focus on the recovered memory, and the attempt to hold another accountable for a client’s pain and suffering. This, understandably, tore families apart and in some cases, lead to lawsuits.
The therapy Mary Jo received didn’t seem to effectively help her with behavioral techniques to manage her life, inner emotions and thought process to deal with others in healthier constructive ways. She had already endured enough traumas without adding more. Mary Jo suffered a mental breakdown that led to a psychiatric hospitalization, fracturing her family life and causing irreparable damage.
A move to Virginia with inspiring views of the Blue Ridge Mountains restored her health and wellness. Mary Jo Doig currently resides in the same vicinity, and facilitates creative writing workshops; her short stories have been featured in independent publications. (3.5*) **With thanks and appreciation to She Writes Press for the ARC for the purpose of review.
After moving several times, Mary Jo’s parents bought a home in a Long Island, N.Y. community--her mother wanted to live near her parents to get help raising the couple’s small daughters: her husband traveled frequently with various jobs (1941—55). Mary Jo (b.1942-) was the oldest of three girls. Jackie was developmentally disabled, Mary Jo and Bonnie helped with their sister’s care. It seemed like her parents did their best to provide income and stability, though they eventually divorced. Mary Jo also recalled interesting cultural facts, events, and popular music from the 1950’s and 60’s.
Following her high school graduation (1959), Mary Jo’s sweetheart Cliff, suddenly broke-up with her. At Oneonta, N.Y. Mary Jo attended college, she received a letter from Cliff wanting to resume their relationship; he had joined the Navy. After she and Cliff reunited, Mary Jo learned she was pregnant, and they were married—following the cultural norms and expectations. The loss of their daughter Jocelyn, born prematurely with birth defects was terribly sad. This was only a beginning, more loss would follow after the arrival of the couple’s son’s Clifford Stephen III, or “Chip” (1963-) and Keith Gregory (1965-73).
After Cliff shamelessly abandoned Mary Jo and their young sons, Mary Jo was determined to return to college to complete her education. This was one of the best decisions she ever made. Eventually she would become a social worker and assist in the care of developmentally disabled adults.
On June 29, 1973 Mary Jo married Don, 28, a quiet gentle man who owned a rural 170 acre family farm in Bovina Center, N.Y. Mary Jo marveled at the beauty of the land, the farm fresh foods, close-knit community, and joined Don’s Presbyterian church, despite her misgivings about leaving her Catholic faith. The couple had two daughters, Polly Anne (1977-) and Susan Emily (1979-). Mary Jo felt deeply connected to the farming community, joined the farmwives in quilting clubs, entered cooking contests with her daughters in county fairs, and was elected as the town clerk. It was necessary for her to return to work, the income raised in farming wasn’t enough to deep the family afloat. Mary Jo was the only farmwife that had outside employment.
With a recommendation from the pastor of her church, Mary Jo sought therapy for severe anxiety that led to panic attacks and eventually a paralyzing depression. It was apparent she had endured unbearable hardship and loss: two children, the death of her beloved mother-in-law, the deaths of her father and uncle. With a full time employment and helping Don run the farm— she worked herself to the bone.
Mary Jo read an article in Newsweek Magazine that had a story about presidential candidate Bill Clinton, and another feature titled: “Surviving Incest: Can Memories be Trusted?” (October 7, 1991). An entire therapeutic movement was about to be unleashed that would eventually affect over a million of (mostly) American women and their families. Recovered Memory Therapy (RMT) is highly controversial, and is not listed in the DSM-V (2013), nor a recognized or approved treatment by the American Psychological Association. When I realized RMT was part of Mary Jo’s story, I offered this book to a friend of mine, (who is a PhD psychologist and an award winning author) hoping she would be interested in offering any insight-- she kindly replied: “I’ll read your review.”
The methods used by therapists to recover repressed memories included inner child work, body work, dream work, guided imagery, hypnosis etc.-- were questionable. The impossibility of establishing truth from memories recovered from infancy and early childhood are well documented in scientific studies and research. One the main components of RMT included the hyper focus on the recovered memory, and the attempt to hold another accountable for a client’s pain and suffering. This, understandably, tore families apart and in some cases, lead to lawsuits.
The therapy Mary Jo received didn’t seem to effectively help her with behavioral techniques to manage her life, inner emotions and thought process to deal with others in healthier constructive ways. She had already endured enough traumas without adding more. Mary Jo suffered a mental breakdown that led to a psychiatric hospitalization, fracturing her family life and causing irreparable damage.
A move to Virginia with inspiring views of the Blue Ridge Mountains restored her health and wellness. Mary Jo Doig currently resides in the same vicinity, and facilitates creative writing workshops; her short stories have been featured in independent publications. (3.5*) **With thanks and appreciation to She Writes Press for the ARC for the purpose of review.
September 27, 2018
Patchwork, a memoir of love and loss
By Mary Jo Doig
Reviewed by Judy Alter
In 2000, Mary Jo Doig moved from everything familiar to live in a one-bedroom cabin, 589 square feet, halfway up a mountain above Lexington, Virginia. Her cabin sat in a small clearing in the woods, and her picture windows framed scenes of silent trees and solitude. Here she began to write, piecing together the parts of her life like the quilts she has always loved to create.
Doig was emotionally abused as a child, scorned by her father as worthless. The oldest of three girls, she was followed by Jackie, the sister with severe intellectual and emotional problems that demanded her mother’s full attention, and then by Bonnie, clearly her father’s favorite.
Life came up and hit Mary Jo hard—a shotgun marriage, an automobile accident that left her face badly disfigured and required surgery, her husband’s infidelity and desertion, extreme poverty with two sons to raise, the death of a fiancé in a wreck followed by the lingering death of her younger son, brain-dead after another wreck..
But Doig was lucky too. In almost every instance, she had a savior, a person who helped her—the doctor who completed her facial recovery surgery without fee after her husband left her with no medical insurance, the man who helped make it possible for her to go back to school, the man she fell in love with and married, and the counselor who patiently and gently helped her recall the truth about her past.
Doig’s husband was a dairy farmer, and after their marriage she moved to the farm, commuting to her social work job and immersing herself in the hard work of daily life on a self-sustaining farm and in the small community around the farm. She cooked, baked, milked cows, grew vegetables, joined a quilting circle, worked from dawn to dusk. The couple struggled with the economic realities of farm life. She and Don had two daughters, and she thought she was happy despite their struggles to cling to the farm that was Don’s inheritance, not only a means of making a living but land and a way of life that spoke of his family.
The death of her father and a beloved uncle brought unexpected reactions. She fell into a deep depression and developed strange physical symptoms—crying bouts, anxiety attacks, a claw-like gesture with her hand. Counseling revealed the secret that she had been trying to hide from for years: as a young child, not only had she been emotionally scarred, she had been sexually abused by her father, her uncle, and her grandfather. Through her long hours of work with her counselor, she realized abuse was a disease, a gene, a pattern that infected her father’s family.
Counseling and her reconstructed memories tore apart her family—her marriage failed, and she left the farm, her daughters elected not to go with her, her son was gone from home and dealing with problems of his own. Doig set out to create a new life for herself.
There’s no way this rather superficial accounting can capture the agony of her years of living a pretend life and then the desperation of working through those recovered memories, nor the heartache over the losses that life brought her. This is a powerful story, told simply, of love and loss as the subtitle suggests. But what the subtitle misses is that it is also a story of growth and redemption. Somehow Doig knew she was better than the messages she carried from her childhood, and each time life knocked her down, she not only came back, but she climbed a bit higher on that mountain that blocked her life. Until, finally, she landed in her mountain cabin with its metaphorical importance.
Old memories can still haunt her, cause panic attacks. But such moments are rare, and she can now tell herself that she is a person of worth, that she is stronger than her past.
For both Doig and the reader, hers is a rocky journey. A prologue offers a hint of the depth of troubled times to come, a one-page scene describing the onset of a panic attack. I wished for a prologue that oriented me toward more of the book, a hint that this wasn’t just about self-esteem but indeed dealt with one of the basic causes of a desperate life—sexual abuse.
And that quilt? Doig discovered that her initial plan was too ambitious, but she asked the book designer to use a quilt motif. So, as she originally hoped, each chapter opens with a quilt image. She was surprised and delighted with the proposed cover design featuring a needlework tree of life. Now she’s at work on a wall hanging with each person important in her life represented by a leaf on the tree of life. Throughout the memoir, Doig occasionally describes a leaf as she adds it—lovingly crafted leaves for her children and her ex-husband, from whom she parted on good terms, one for the man who helped her go to college, and for her longtime counselor. The most telling leaves are those for father, uncle, and grandfather. Their leaves, at the bottom of the quilt, are unopened and brown, missing the breezes and rain and sunshine that nourishes growing things.
I feel that I know Mary Jo Doig. Our lives have been dramatically different, mine far less troubled than hers. But I share some feelings, some insecurities, some dreams with her. Perhaps the ultimate tie that binds us is our tiny housing—I too live in 600 square feet and welcome the blessing of some but not too much solitude. I can see how her cabin helped her sort out her life and write this memoir, and I’m grateful that she did. I think you’ll like her too as you follow her journey in these pages.
By Mary Jo Doig
Reviewed by Judy Alter
In 2000, Mary Jo Doig moved from everything familiar to live in a one-bedroom cabin, 589 square feet, halfway up a mountain above Lexington, Virginia. Her cabin sat in a small clearing in the woods, and her picture windows framed scenes of silent trees and solitude. Here she began to write, piecing together the parts of her life like the quilts she has always loved to create.
Doig was emotionally abused as a child, scorned by her father as worthless. The oldest of three girls, she was followed by Jackie, the sister with severe intellectual and emotional problems that demanded her mother’s full attention, and then by Bonnie, clearly her father’s favorite.
Life came up and hit Mary Jo hard—a shotgun marriage, an automobile accident that left her face badly disfigured and required surgery, her husband’s infidelity and desertion, extreme poverty with two sons to raise, the death of a fiancé in a wreck followed by the lingering death of her younger son, brain-dead after another wreck..
But Doig was lucky too. In almost every instance, she had a savior, a person who helped her—the doctor who completed her facial recovery surgery without fee after her husband left her with no medical insurance, the man who helped make it possible for her to go back to school, the man she fell in love with and married, and the counselor who patiently and gently helped her recall the truth about her past.
Doig’s husband was a dairy farmer, and after their marriage she moved to the farm, commuting to her social work job and immersing herself in the hard work of daily life on a self-sustaining farm and in the small community around the farm. She cooked, baked, milked cows, grew vegetables, joined a quilting circle, worked from dawn to dusk. The couple struggled with the economic realities of farm life. She and Don had two daughters, and she thought she was happy despite their struggles to cling to the farm that was Don’s inheritance, not only a means of making a living but land and a way of life that spoke of his family.
The death of her father and a beloved uncle brought unexpected reactions. She fell into a deep depression and developed strange physical symptoms—crying bouts, anxiety attacks, a claw-like gesture with her hand. Counseling revealed the secret that she had been trying to hide from for years: as a young child, not only had she been emotionally scarred, she had been sexually abused by her father, her uncle, and her grandfather. Through her long hours of work with her counselor, she realized abuse was a disease, a gene, a pattern that infected her father’s family.
Counseling and her reconstructed memories tore apart her family—her marriage failed, and she left the farm, her daughters elected not to go with her, her son was gone from home and dealing with problems of his own. Doig set out to create a new life for herself.
There’s no way this rather superficial accounting can capture the agony of her years of living a pretend life and then the desperation of working through those recovered memories, nor the heartache over the losses that life brought her. This is a powerful story, told simply, of love and loss as the subtitle suggests. But what the subtitle misses is that it is also a story of growth and redemption. Somehow Doig knew she was better than the messages she carried from her childhood, and each time life knocked her down, she not only came back, but she climbed a bit higher on that mountain that blocked her life. Until, finally, she landed in her mountain cabin with its metaphorical importance.
Old memories can still haunt her, cause panic attacks. But such moments are rare, and she can now tell herself that she is a person of worth, that she is stronger than her past.
For both Doig and the reader, hers is a rocky journey. A prologue offers a hint of the depth of troubled times to come, a one-page scene describing the onset of a panic attack. I wished for a prologue that oriented me toward more of the book, a hint that this wasn’t just about self-esteem but indeed dealt with one of the basic causes of a desperate life—sexual abuse.
And that quilt? Doig discovered that her initial plan was too ambitious, but she asked the book designer to use a quilt motif. So, as she originally hoped, each chapter opens with a quilt image. She was surprised and delighted with the proposed cover design featuring a needlework tree of life. Now she’s at work on a wall hanging with each person important in her life represented by a leaf on the tree of life. Throughout the memoir, Doig occasionally describes a leaf as she adds it—lovingly crafted leaves for her children and her ex-husband, from whom she parted on good terms, one for the man who helped her go to college, and for her longtime counselor. The most telling leaves are those for father, uncle, and grandfather. Their leaves, at the bottom of the quilt, are unopened and brown, missing the breezes and rain and sunshine that nourishes growing things.
I feel that I know Mary Jo Doig. Our lives have been dramatically different, mine far less troubled than hers. But I share some feelings, some insecurities, some dreams with her. Perhaps the ultimate tie that binds us is our tiny housing—I too live in 600 square feet and welcome the blessing of some but not too much solitude. I can see how her cabin helped her sort out her life and write this memoir, and I’m grateful that she did. I think you’ll like her too as you follow her journey in these pages.
August 16, 2018
Mary Jo Doig introduces a mystery at the beginning of Patchwork, then unravels it as she takes us from her early childhood to the present, struggling to please everyone she cared about and enduring one heartbreak after another. It’s only when she confronts her past as a victim of sexual abuse and does the hard work of reconciling how it affected her life that she finds her strength and a place of peace to call her own.
It would be wise for potential readers to understand that some scenes in this memoir might trigger their own traumatic memories. Doig writes with such power and immediacy that I often found myself holding my breath as I read about the horrors she faced.
Doig patched her life together after major losses: the deaths of two children, the breakup of two marriages, and the temporary loss of her mental health. Readers will root for her as she gathers up the pieces and crafts a new life for herself, even as she appliques fabric hearts representing the people in her life onto a real quilt.
The author also weaves current events into her story. As we go deep into her personal struggle, she makes note of the larger world that barely touches her: the first TV shows, Howdy Doody and Hopalong Cassidy; a Peruvian dictator’s overthrow; thalidomide babies; the disappearance of the submarine Thresher.
Stitching together a life in caretaking as housewife, mother, social worker, day care provider and farm wife, she finally realizes she has been working to be what others needed, seeking their approval and never stopping to think what she herself really wanted.
“I’m tired of this work,” she writes. “The work hasn’t changed nor have the people. It’s me. I’ve changed.” She brings the reader into the present in her Virginia cabin, as she writes, “I stared out the window to the snowy meadow, thinking how grateful I was for my greatest healing tool – writing.”
Doig has used all the tools she could get her hands on – therapy, hospitalization, self-help books (of which she credits many) and writing – to come to terms with her past and make a new home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Excerpts from her journals and self-help books are threaded through the chapters like stitches on her quilt.
Reading much like a suspense novel, Patchwork is a brave, honest portrayal of one woman’s fight for the survival of her essential self. It will doubtless encourage many women with a similar experience to seek their own place of peace.
It would be wise for potential readers to understand that some scenes in this memoir might trigger their own traumatic memories. Doig writes with such power and immediacy that I often found myself holding my breath as I read about the horrors she faced.
Doig patched her life together after major losses: the deaths of two children, the breakup of two marriages, and the temporary loss of her mental health. Readers will root for her as she gathers up the pieces and crafts a new life for herself, even as she appliques fabric hearts representing the people in her life onto a real quilt.
The author also weaves current events into her story. As we go deep into her personal struggle, she makes note of the larger world that barely touches her: the first TV shows, Howdy Doody and Hopalong Cassidy; a Peruvian dictator’s overthrow; thalidomide babies; the disappearance of the submarine Thresher.
Stitching together a life in caretaking as housewife, mother, social worker, day care provider and farm wife, she finally realizes she has been working to be what others needed, seeking their approval and never stopping to think what she herself really wanted.
“I’m tired of this work,” she writes. “The work hasn’t changed nor have the people. It’s me. I’ve changed.” She brings the reader into the present in her Virginia cabin, as she writes, “I stared out the window to the snowy meadow, thinking how grateful I was for my greatest healing tool – writing.”
Doig has used all the tools she could get her hands on – therapy, hospitalization, self-help books (of which she credits many) and writing – to come to terms with her past and make a new home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Excerpts from her journals and self-help books are threaded through the chapters like stitches on her quilt.
Reading much like a suspense novel, Patchwork is a brave, honest portrayal of one woman’s fight for the survival of her essential self. It will doubtless encourage many women with a similar experience to seek their own place of peace.
October 4, 2018
My Thoughts:
Memoirs are written with a particular memory the author wants to share. For example, the specific time when a person lived through the Holocaust. Another example, the accident and recovery of a traumatic event. Patchwork is the entire life story of Mary Jo Doig. The book begins with her parents and how they met. The year is 1940. The book shares the childhood and young adult life of Doig. Her marriages and children. Her college and career. It is later in the book when the author has memories of abuse that surface. The book shifts to the counseling and hard work of recovery.
For me, the book seemed to be a part of Mary Jo Doig's way of recovery. Writing out her life helped to work through or reconcile life. Similar to journal writing. It was a way to get the memories out of the mind and onto paper. For some readers, they may not appreciate the detailed/comprehensive description of Doig's life. They want emphasis placed on the abuse and recovery work. I'm a reader who loves descriptive details, but at times I wanted Doig to move-along and get to the point of the book.
In the news, films, books, and other media sexual abuse is being discussed. I have several best girlfriends, many of them have began opening up to me about their abuse; and I have begun sharing my abuse story. At the least, the discussion about sexual abuse is a good thing, because people are becoming informed. I've heard several men remark, "oh, that's not abuse, it's inappropriate but not abuse." Men and women have minimized abuse, not knowing the definition of what abuse is and that it is more than just inappropriate. A book like Patchwork helps readers understand the horror of abuse, the long term effects, and the hard work of recovery.
Patchwork is a sad story. Both in the abuse and Doig's recovery work. Working towards recovery doesn't mean current relationships stay the same. Life is not going to be in a neat package with a pretty bow. It took courage to work towards recovery and to tell her story.
Doig is the voice/narrator in the story. She is the viewpoint character. We read the conversations, but also her thoughts during that memory and current reflection.
For my Christian readers, this book is not a Christian book.
Source: I received a complimentary copy, but was not required to leave a positive review. Advanced reader paperback copy.
Memoirs are written with a particular memory the author wants to share. For example, the specific time when a person lived through the Holocaust. Another example, the accident and recovery of a traumatic event. Patchwork is the entire life story of Mary Jo Doig. The book begins with her parents and how they met. The year is 1940. The book shares the childhood and young adult life of Doig. Her marriages and children. Her college and career. It is later in the book when the author has memories of abuse that surface. The book shifts to the counseling and hard work of recovery.
For me, the book seemed to be a part of Mary Jo Doig's way of recovery. Writing out her life helped to work through or reconcile life. Similar to journal writing. It was a way to get the memories out of the mind and onto paper. For some readers, they may not appreciate the detailed/comprehensive description of Doig's life. They want emphasis placed on the abuse and recovery work. I'm a reader who loves descriptive details, but at times I wanted Doig to move-along and get to the point of the book.
In the news, films, books, and other media sexual abuse is being discussed. I have several best girlfriends, many of them have began opening up to me about their abuse; and I have begun sharing my abuse story. At the least, the discussion about sexual abuse is a good thing, because people are becoming informed. I've heard several men remark, "oh, that's not abuse, it's inappropriate but not abuse." Men and women have minimized abuse, not knowing the definition of what abuse is and that it is more than just inappropriate. A book like Patchwork helps readers understand the horror of abuse, the long term effects, and the hard work of recovery.
Patchwork is a sad story. Both in the abuse and Doig's recovery work. Working towards recovery doesn't mean current relationships stay the same. Life is not going to be in a neat package with a pretty bow. It took courage to work towards recovery and to tell her story.
Doig is the voice/narrator in the story. She is the viewpoint character. We read the conversations, but also her thoughts during that memory and current reflection.
For my Christian readers, this book is not a Christian book.
Source: I received a complimentary copy, but was not required to leave a positive review. Advanced reader paperback copy.
October 23, 2018
Patchwork is a poignant and riveting story of a woman’s journey to transformation and healing from childhood abuse. Hidden in the deep recesses of her psyche, the memory of the abuse unravels one night following the death of a relative when she experiences a flashback that takes her to the horrific events in her childhood.
The story reads like a psychological thriller as she slowly allows herself to face the past trauma, all while enduring the deaths of two of her children and struggles in her marriage. Using a patchwork quilt as a metaphor, she skillfully weaves in her struggles and heartaches as she strives to live a full life, sewing patchwork hearts together to form a beautiful quilt.
At the heart of this story is a strong, loving woman who strives to be the best she can be, despite the odds and ultimately achieves healing and transformation.
The story reads like a psychological thriller as she slowly allows herself to face the past trauma, all while enduring the deaths of two of her children and struggles in her marriage. Using a patchwork quilt as a metaphor, she skillfully weaves in her struggles and heartaches as she strives to live a full life, sewing patchwork hearts together to form a beautiful quilt.
At the heart of this story is a strong, loving woman who strives to be the best she can be, despite the odds and ultimately achieves healing and transformation.
August 24, 2018
Patchwork: A Memoir of Love and Loss is a layering of life stories and reflections that are both sobering and uplifting.
One layer recounts author Mary Jo Doig's life from birth forward, stories of people and events that draw the reader into each episode as though it occurred yesterday. Childhood and young adult stories are sprinkled with maturity's reflective wisdom. This layer reads like a suspense mystery, horror upon horror. The collective tragedies and disruptions is not an easy read, but the what-next suspense makes setting the book aside difficult. Doig grows up accepting labels repeatedly thrown at her, including stupid, bad, emotionally immature. She keeps trying to be what others want, to be accepted. She keeps running into obstacles.
Another layer develops as the adult author uncovers who she is and why. Flashbacks stemming from family incidents and current events on a broader level trigger inner glimpses. Laced into this layer are various books that provided a mirror for the author's true self, long hidden from view by an innate protective shield of dissociation. She grows as one by one she chooses to accept formerly blocked ugly truths. This growth is irreversible, progressive changes triggering further trauma, extending her coping to include professional help.
These layers are stitched together with periodic references to a quilt the author embellishes with fabric heart-shaped leaves; each signifies a person or place essential to her continued becoming. This quilt is a tactile symbol of life patches drawn from evolving recall and journals diligently kept through the years.
My recommendation? Read this book. For understanding family impact. For encouragement to uncover or acknowledge experiences that shaped you. For impetus to consider how you shape others through action and attitude. For the warmth and respect you will feel for the author.
by Jazz Jaeschke
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
One layer recounts author Mary Jo Doig's life from birth forward, stories of people and events that draw the reader into each episode as though it occurred yesterday. Childhood and young adult stories are sprinkled with maturity's reflective wisdom. This layer reads like a suspense mystery, horror upon horror. The collective tragedies and disruptions is not an easy read, but the what-next suspense makes setting the book aside difficult. Doig grows up accepting labels repeatedly thrown at her, including stupid, bad, emotionally immature. She keeps trying to be what others want, to be accepted. She keeps running into obstacles.
Another layer develops as the adult author uncovers who she is and why. Flashbacks stemming from family incidents and current events on a broader level trigger inner glimpses. Laced into this layer are various books that provided a mirror for the author's true self, long hidden from view by an innate protective shield of dissociation. She grows as one by one she chooses to accept formerly blocked ugly truths. This growth is irreversible, progressive changes triggering further trauma, extending her coping to include professional help.
These layers are stitched together with periodic references to a quilt the author embellishes with fabric heart-shaped leaves; each signifies a person or place essential to her continued becoming. This quilt is a tactile symbol of life patches drawn from evolving recall and journals diligently kept through the years.
My recommendation? Read this book. For understanding family impact. For encouragement to uncover or acknowledge experiences that shaped you. For impetus to consider how you shape others through action and attitude. For the warmth and respect you will feel for the author.
by Jazz Jaeschke
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
September 10, 2018
Patchwork – A Memoir of Love and Loss
Mary Jo Doig
Review by Barbara Bamberger Scott
Memories of a blighted childhood flood a woman’s mind, forcing her to confront her darkest thoughts and driving her to change her life in radical, positive ways.
Mary Jo Doig believed she had grown up in an unremarkable home environment. She was able to start college and look forward to a career. Pregnancy stalled that vision and giving birth to a child who died of birth defects was the first of many life burdens that Doig would bear. Her husband had a drinking problem that resulted in a traumatic auto accident. He found another partner and left Doig alone, the single mother of two little boys. A friend encouraged her to go back to college, where she met a man to whom she was greatly attached but who was killed in a car wreck. Loose and lonely, trying to find comfort in her Catholic beliefs, she met a man of few words who was pursuing his dream to be a farmer. The two married and Doig took well to rural life. A longtime knitter, she became a quilter and worked in case management with disabled individuals, but sadness continued to stalk her.
One day she chanced on an article about childhood abuse. Her reaction to it was extreme. She soon realized that she was among those who had been verbally, physically and sexually abused. Memories of an uncle surfaced first, but later she recalled terrifying incidents with her father. Thus began six years of therapy, the dissolution of her marriage, disillusionment with organized religion, and a new career life.
Doig did a great deal of writing during her period of counseling, and that has contributed to this painfully revelatory memoir. But she also turned to facilitating women’s writing as a creative and therapeutic outlet. She has constructed this heart-rending saga honestly, with harrowing descriptions of her mental scarring and hopeful explorations of the self-protective positive steps that pulled her up again. One recent coping mechanism has been a retreat to a little cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains where she wrote this, her first book. Her ability to write clearly but emotively about her many challenges is sure to garner a readership among women coping with similar issues.
Doig’s book is highly recommended for anyone who has experienced the wrenching, lingering pain of childhood abuse. It is likely that in gathering these searing recollections, Doig was not only consoling herself, but hoping to aid others in their self-healing process.
Mary Jo Doig
Review by Barbara Bamberger Scott
Memories of a blighted childhood flood a woman’s mind, forcing her to confront her darkest thoughts and driving her to change her life in radical, positive ways.
Mary Jo Doig believed she had grown up in an unremarkable home environment. She was able to start college and look forward to a career. Pregnancy stalled that vision and giving birth to a child who died of birth defects was the first of many life burdens that Doig would bear. Her husband had a drinking problem that resulted in a traumatic auto accident. He found another partner and left Doig alone, the single mother of two little boys. A friend encouraged her to go back to college, where she met a man to whom she was greatly attached but who was killed in a car wreck. Loose and lonely, trying to find comfort in her Catholic beliefs, she met a man of few words who was pursuing his dream to be a farmer. The two married and Doig took well to rural life. A longtime knitter, she became a quilter and worked in case management with disabled individuals, but sadness continued to stalk her.
One day she chanced on an article about childhood abuse. Her reaction to it was extreme. She soon realized that she was among those who had been verbally, physically and sexually abused. Memories of an uncle surfaced first, but later she recalled terrifying incidents with her father. Thus began six years of therapy, the dissolution of her marriage, disillusionment with organized religion, and a new career life.
Doig did a great deal of writing during her period of counseling, and that has contributed to this painfully revelatory memoir. But she also turned to facilitating women’s writing as a creative and therapeutic outlet. She has constructed this heart-rending saga honestly, with harrowing descriptions of her mental scarring and hopeful explorations of the self-protective positive steps that pulled her up again. One recent coping mechanism has been a retreat to a little cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains where she wrote this, her first book. Her ability to write clearly but emotively about her many challenges is sure to garner a readership among women coping with similar issues.
Doig’s book is highly recommended for anyone who has experienced the wrenching, lingering pain of childhood abuse. It is likely that in gathering these searing recollections, Doig was not only consoling herself, but hoping to aid others in their self-healing process.
August 30, 2019
For many, Mary Jo Doig represents a nurturing soul, gentle spirit, and quiet presence. To those who know her best — and now to those who spend time with her through the reading of Patchwork — she is so much more than that. She is brave, resilient and steadfast. Her ability to overcome some of the most unspeakable events in life by speaking them into truth is profound.
Long before the #MeToo movement Mary Jo Doig set out to speak and write her truths. With bravery, honesty, and a transparency few are comfortable employing, she shares her long-suppressed memories as a way of personal healing. In the writing and sharing of tragic and sometimes unspeakable experiences, she also provides readers with a platform to explore their own life adversities.
Doig’s gift lies in her ability to paint word pictures that remain vivid long after seen on the page. She poignantly confronts sexual abuse, the loss of children, failed marriages and the resulting, albeit temporary, loss of self. Unflinching and unapologetic, the words are difficult to read at times. Mindful and sensitive, the words soothe and reassure at other times.
Few memoirs confront an entire life in as vulnerable a fashion as this. Few authors craft such beauty from so many frayed pieces of life. Readers will likely experience the full gamut of emotions with each turn of the page. But when the final page is turned, each reader must acknowledge that their lives have been deeply impacted by having done so.
Long before the #MeToo movement Mary Jo Doig set out to speak and write her truths. With bravery, honesty, and a transparency few are comfortable employing, she shares her long-suppressed memories as a way of personal healing. In the writing and sharing of tragic and sometimes unspeakable experiences, she also provides readers with a platform to explore their own life adversities.
Doig’s gift lies in her ability to paint word pictures that remain vivid long after seen on the page. She poignantly confronts sexual abuse, the loss of children, failed marriages and the resulting, albeit temporary, loss of self. Unflinching and unapologetic, the words are difficult to read at times. Mindful and sensitive, the words soothe and reassure at other times.
Few memoirs confront an entire life in as vulnerable a fashion as this. Few authors craft such beauty from so many frayed pieces of life. Readers will likely experience the full gamut of emotions with each turn of the page. But when the final page is turned, each reader must acknowledge that their lives have been deeply impacted by having done so.
July 24, 2025
Mary Jo Doig's telling of the piecing back together of her life is riveting. After a family death and a flashback that pulls her down a portal to childhood and memories deeply buried, she begins a journey of healing and transformation that will challenge all she knows. Using the image of a quilt and hearts stitched into it's pattern she takes us with her as she shares her life story. It is a story of family, of love, loss, hope, hopelessness, and the wounds of childhood abuse and the scars it leaves. It is the story of a survivor.
This is a timely read with the rise of the #MeToo movement, and the scandals in the Catholic Church and Hollywood around sexual abuse. It is a hard read yet Mary Jo's telling of it make you want to be there with her as she shares it.
This is a timely read with the rise of the #MeToo movement, and the scandals in the Catholic Church and Hollywood around sexual abuse. It is a hard read yet Mary Jo's telling of it make you want to be there with her as she shares it.
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October 23, 2018Mary Jo Doig
Patchwork: a Memoir of Love and Loss
She Writes Press, 2018, 341 pages, $16.95 print, $9.95 eBook
ISBN: print 978-1-63162-449-3 ebk 978-1-63152-450-9
Memoir
“Family are the people who usually comprise the first important circle we enter in life”
Doig is a true survivor with a vivid recollection of events in her past. Reading her story, written in her 80s, was like sitting next to her and being there as a shoulder to lean on. It proves it is never too late to become a writer. Honestly it was a hard read as it is filled with emotional events. As a mother reading about the loss of her first child and later her youngest son I could only imagine what she felt at those times.
Part of what Doig writes is a journey back on memory lane…Look Jane Look. Run Spot Run…takes me back to first grade in Brooklyn, New York.
Fast forward to her first marriage and birth of her first child, a girl born premature with a problem that ultimately led to day ten when Jocelyn died. Doig’s second child, a boy named Chip was born healthy and almost 9 pounds in December 1963. Shortly after she found herself pregnant with her third child, another son named Keith shortly after which her husband announced he was leaving her though that didn’t materialize. Then driving on a foggy night she and her husband collided with a parked sedan due to deep fog. Doig ended up in ICU with a broken pelvis. Next her husband left her for another woman, resigned from his job and stopped sending her money. She was left to raise their two sons on her own.
Once she started dating loss didn’t leave her either. A guy named Fred who was planning to tell her something on a Saturday morning didn’t live to see that day. He died in an auto accident. On a December 1972 morning she got a call from the school’s nurse that Keith wasn’t feeling well. She picked him up, took him to her workplace, and scheduled a doctor’s appointment before fetching her other son, Chip. Head on crash. Keith injured but alive only to fall into a coma and suffer brain death. How much can one woman take? The sadness of Keith’s death and looking forward to her marriage to Don around the same time changed her and probably the marriage preparations helped her survive once again. After losing three more infants prior to birth she went on to have a healthy daughter, Polly Anne.
This is an amazing woman, an incredible author with an incredible story that had to be told.
Patchwork: a Memoir of Love and Loss
She Writes Press, 2018, 341 pages, $16.95 print, $9.95 eBook
ISBN: print 978-1-63162-449-3 ebk 978-1-63152-450-9
Memoir
“Family are the people who usually comprise the first important circle we enter in life”
Doig is a true survivor with a vivid recollection of events in her past. Reading her story, written in her 80s, was like sitting next to her and being there as a shoulder to lean on. It proves it is never too late to become a writer. Honestly it was a hard read as it is filled with emotional events. As a mother reading about the loss of her first child and later her youngest son I could only imagine what she felt at those times.
Part of what Doig writes is a journey back on memory lane…Look Jane Look. Run Spot Run…takes me back to first grade in Brooklyn, New York.
Fast forward to her first marriage and birth of her first child, a girl born premature with a problem that ultimately led to day ten when Jocelyn died. Doig’s second child, a boy named Chip was born healthy and almost 9 pounds in December 1963. Shortly after she found herself pregnant with her third child, another son named Keith shortly after which her husband announced he was leaving her though that didn’t materialize. Then driving on a foggy night she and her husband collided with a parked sedan due to deep fog. Doig ended up in ICU with a broken pelvis. Next her husband left her for another woman, resigned from his job and stopped sending her money. She was left to raise their two sons on her own.
Once she started dating loss didn’t leave her either. A guy named Fred who was planning to tell her something on a Saturday morning didn’t live to see that day. He died in an auto accident. On a December 1972 morning she got a call from the school’s nurse that Keith wasn’t feeling well. She picked him up, took him to her workplace, and scheduled a doctor’s appointment before fetching her other son, Chip. Head on crash. Keith injured but alive only to fall into a coma and suffer brain death. How much can one woman take? The sadness of Keith’s death and looking forward to her marriage to Don around the same time changed her and probably the marriage preparations helped her survive once again. After losing three more infants prior to birth she went on to have a healthy daughter, Polly Anne.
This is an amazing woman, an incredible author with an incredible story that had to be told.
October 23, 2018
Patchwork
By Mary Jo Doig
2018
Reviewed by Angie Mangino
Rating: 5 stars
In the prologue of this memoir of love and loss dated October 4, 1991 in Bovina Center, New York the author refers to the parallel of her life to her craft of quilting.
“I am forty-nine years old and about to uncover a long, tightly tangled thread that will tug me, one knot after another, back to my childhood.”
Chapter one starts in Manhattan and Center Moriches, New York in 1940. By exploring her parents’ life together from the very beginning the author sets the groundwork of the patterns of her life.
“The diamond was stunning, nearly a carat. Surely my mother’s brown eyes sparkled as beautifully as the precious marquise-cut in the sterling setting my father held out to her.
‘Audrey, will you marry me?’”
Readers will continue reading on enmeshed in the progression of the author’s story, learning the childhood secrets, seeing the challenges she faced, searching for a transformational hopeful outcome.
The author delivers all of this with a compelling narrative, realistic dialogue, and significant symbolism with each patch representing people stitched lovingly into the quilt that denotes her life then and now. This type of strong writing will stay with readers long after the conclusion of this book.
Angie Mangino currently works as a freelance journalist and book reviewer, additionally offering authors personalized critique service and copyediting of unpublished manuscripts. www.AngieMangino.com
By Mary Jo Doig
2018
Reviewed by Angie Mangino
Rating: 5 stars
In the prologue of this memoir of love and loss dated October 4, 1991 in Bovina Center, New York the author refers to the parallel of her life to her craft of quilting.
“I am forty-nine years old and about to uncover a long, tightly tangled thread that will tug me, one knot after another, back to my childhood.”
Chapter one starts in Manhattan and Center Moriches, New York in 1940. By exploring her parents’ life together from the very beginning the author sets the groundwork of the patterns of her life.
“The diamond was stunning, nearly a carat. Surely my mother’s brown eyes sparkled as beautifully as the precious marquise-cut in the sterling setting my father held out to her.
‘Audrey, will you marry me?’”
Readers will continue reading on enmeshed in the progression of the author’s story, learning the childhood secrets, seeing the challenges she faced, searching for a transformational hopeful outcome.
The author delivers all of this with a compelling narrative, realistic dialogue, and significant symbolism with each patch representing people stitched lovingly into the quilt that denotes her life then and now. This type of strong writing will stay with readers long after the conclusion of this book.
Angie Mangino currently works as a freelance journalist and book reviewer, additionally offering authors personalized critique service and copyediting of unpublished manuscripts. www.AngieMangino.com
July 27, 2023
Mary Jo Doig’s “Patchwork: A Memoir of Love and Loss” is one of the most incredible books I have ever read. In capturing a lifetime of trauma, loss, abuse, and nearly every adversity one can imagine, Doig masterfully weaves a story that completely captures the reader’s attention and compassion. She has produced not only a kind of catharsis for herself but also a lifeline for others who have faced or are facing similar kinds of hardships. I was greatly inspired by her courage, honesty, strength, and candor.
This memoir is not an easy read, but Doig is an accomplished author who knows how to tell her story. There is plenty of tension and suspense. Serious readers who follow her “mythic journey” into confronting her repressed memories will find themselves continuously turning the pages to find out what happens next. At the same time, the odds are they will end up reflecting deeply upon their own life journeys. I certainly did.
Doig’s style contains no bitterness; it is gentle, persuasive, and compelling. She is a survivor who has given us a profound message of healing. I can’t recommend “Patchwork: A Memoir of Love and Loss” highly enough. It now has a prominent place on my bookshelf of “keepers.”
This memoir is not an easy read, but Doig is an accomplished author who knows how to tell her story. There is plenty of tension and suspense. Serious readers who follow her “mythic journey” into confronting her repressed memories will find themselves continuously turning the pages to find out what happens next. At the same time, the odds are they will end up reflecting deeply upon their own life journeys. I certainly did.
Doig’s style contains no bitterness; it is gentle, persuasive, and compelling. She is a survivor who has given us a profound message of healing. I can’t recommend “Patchwork: A Memoir of Love and Loss” highly enough. It now has a prominent place on my bookshelf of “keepers.”
January 9, 2019
Patchwork by Mary Jo Doig is a book for everyone...because it's a book about family. And life. And loss. And love. While the memoir includes great tragedy and its aftermath, and may induce tears, it also includes many moments of joy. Yes, there is suffering, but ultimately, Patchwork tells us not only how to overcome life's devastating circumstances (since we all will suffer at some point), but how to triumph. Perhaps no one says it better than the author herself:
"Part of the task of composing a life is the artist’s need to find a way to take what is simply ugly and, instead of trying to deny it, to use it in the broader design." --Mary Catherine Bateson
I was so uncomfortable about including the “ugly” parts of my life until [the above sentence] led me to think of a patchwork quilt. I thought of how arranging dark fabrics and light patchwork designs (representing dark and light stories), when assembled into a quilt, created a beautiful whole. Could I ever think of my life through that lens? I wondered as, energized, I created chapter titles that were the names of mostly 19th century quilt patterns, such as Altar Steps, Baby Blocks, Sunshine and Shadow, North Winds, Storm at Sea—thirty-one of them for that many chapters. Beneath each title is an illustration of the quilt block. That “aha” moment changed the way I saw my life. Now, more than a grouping of happy and sad events, I can see my life as a beautiful whole, like the quilt design on my cover."
"Part of the task of composing a life is the artist’s need to find a way to take what is simply ugly and, instead of trying to deny it, to use it in the broader design." --Mary Catherine Bateson
I was so uncomfortable about including the “ugly” parts of my life until [the above sentence] led me to think of a patchwork quilt. I thought of how arranging dark fabrics and light patchwork designs (representing dark and light stories), when assembled into a quilt, created a beautiful whole. Could I ever think of my life through that lens? I wondered as, energized, I created chapter titles that were the names of mostly 19th century quilt patterns, such as Altar Steps, Baby Blocks, Sunshine and Shadow, North Winds, Storm at Sea—thirty-one of them for that many chapters. Beneath each title is an illustration of the quilt block. That “aha” moment changed the way I saw my life. Now, more than a grouping of happy and sad events, I can see my life as a beautiful whole, like the quilt design on my cover."
December 18, 2019
Patchwork, subtitled A Memoir of Love and Loss, is a beautifully presented narrative of Mary Jo Doig’s journey withstanding sexual, emotional and physical abuse. At forty-nine years old, the author begins to “uncover a long, tightly tangled thread.”
This memoir depicts many intense situations as it begins with her parents’ marriage in 1940. Each chapter title grounds us in time and place. Entertaining details such as when Father brings their first television set home, Mother admitting “in later decades how guilty and responsible for Jackie’s (Mary Jo’s sister) retardation she’s always felt,” and Mary Jo’s desire to be just like Mrs. Forster, her Home Economics teacher, are just a few examples of the author’s ability to capture intimacy with the reader.
Mary Jo’s yearning for “our real marriage” and the silent “deep anger” within her family transports the reader through years of denial and forgetting events of which one could not speak. Anticipation and tension evolve with simple hooks such as “but it, like all the others, would return.” And yes, these hushed events return in the most unusual forms of disclosure.
Each chronologically arranged chapter escorted me through life-altering decisions, life and death circumstances, births, pain and searching in Mary Jo’s spell-binding story. Often I had to remind myself that these events really occurred and the author is alive and successful because of her healing therapies and healthy decisions.
Mary Jo experienced a breakthrough with the support of a therapist “recommended by our preacher.” You will discover within these pages a woman who has survived incest, abuse, and children’s deaths. Her marriages are integral as love is given, received, dissected, reinvented and perhaps even discarded. Mary Jo’s therapist astutely reveals, “Mary Jo, I think you are very lonely for yourself.” To discover how this truth and other revealing aspects of survival unfold, Patchwork is your winning ticket.
The quilt pictured on the book’s cover is Mary Jo’s representation of the many stepping stones to her healing and strength that she now embodies. She stitched hearts onto the quilt throughout the story. The reader understands the meaning of each heart and its integrity to her experience. As you read this beautiful account of survival, you will want to stitch the largest and most beautiful heart on the quilt to represent the author.
Reviewed by Joan Connor
This memoir depicts many intense situations as it begins with her parents’ marriage in 1940. Each chapter title grounds us in time and place. Entertaining details such as when Father brings their first television set home, Mother admitting “in later decades how guilty and responsible for Jackie’s (Mary Jo’s sister) retardation she’s always felt,” and Mary Jo’s desire to be just like Mrs. Forster, her Home Economics teacher, are just a few examples of the author’s ability to capture intimacy with the reader.
Mary Jo’s yearning for “our real marriage” and the silent “deep anger” within her family transports the reader through years of denial and forgetting events of which one could not speak. Anticipation and tension evolve with simple hooks such as “but it, like all the others, would return.” And yes, these hushed events return in the most unusual forms of disclosure.
Each chronologically arranged chapter escorted me through life-altering decisions, life and death circumstances, births, pain and searching in Mary Jo’s spell-binding story. Often I had to remind myself that these events really occurred and the author is alive and successful because of her healing therapies and healthy decisions.
Mary Jo experienced a breakthrough with the support of a therapist “recommended by our preacher.” You will discover within these pages a woman who has survived incest, abuse, and children’s deaths. Her marriages are integral as love is given, received, dissected, reinvented and perhaps even discarded. Mary Jo’s therapist astutely reveals, “Mary Jo, I think you are very lonely for yourself.” To discover how this truth and other revealing aspects of survival unfold, Patchwork is your winning ticket.
The quilt pictured on the book’s cover is Mary Jo’s representation of the many stepping stones to her healing and strength that she now embodies. She stitched hearts onto the quilt throughout the story. The reader understands the meaning of each heart and its integrity to her experience. As you read this beautiful account of survival, you will want to stitch the largest and most beautiful heart on the quilt to represent the author.
Reviewed by Joan Connor
February 3, 2020
Review of Patchwork
Having been a neighbor and friend of Maryjo for several years while she was in Bovina, I’m struck by the paradoxes of her life. As friends, I only knew that she’d divorced once, lost her precious little boy to a tragic accident, and married Don Doig, to whom she was now married.
She exuded an amazing calm, which I so appreciated as I lived my own life. Her presentation as a friend seemed to be her commitment to Life, in spite of her agonizing pain. If I’d known all, could I have helped? I’m not sure, other than to imagine that her care for me was healing to her, or that care gave her another day to face that pain.
Do I wish I’d known? I’m not sure that I could have handled it all in an honest fashion; how does one know what to do without falling all over one’s feet, or attempting to rescue without appropriate skills?
I only know that I was the friend that I could be: sharing kid activities and needs with her, fixing a meal here and there when she seemed overloaded with family or community obligations, or sharing a cup of coffee on a winter morning in her kitchen, with the smell of bread or pie baking. (Was that for her….or me?)
I do know that she profoundly added to my life by being who she could be, at the time. And yes, MaryJo, I’m sorry……….and grateful that you’ve shared your whole story. Maybe someone out there won’t feel alone, and will be able to resolve pain, because of your gift in Patchwork.
June 29, 2019
A Patchwork of Strength and Bravey
This memoir is indeed a patchwork of strength and bravery with memories stitched cohesively together as the author uncovers and comes to terms with trauma throughout her life, finally discovering her own peace and self-worth. I recommend it anyone seeking to to reconcile the past with the present.
This memoir is indeed a patchwork of strength and bravery with memories stitched cohesively together as the author uncovers and comes to terms with trauma throughout her life, finally discovering her own peace and self-worth. I recommend it anyone seeking to to reconcile the past with the present.
February 17, 2019
Events that brought back many memories of the author's childhood. It also made me realise that the past can be overcome by writing and reliving it. Mary is an excellent storyteller. I loved every moment of it.
November 21, 2018
Excellent memoir and must read for women who are empowered (or need encouragement) to write their truth. If everyone could be so open and direct, think how different the world could be.
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