The Feminist Review

Kate Jacob’s The Friday Night Knitting Club is a delightful novel about community building among women. The story is inspiring – single mom creates successful business, and influences other women to go after their own dreams and overcome deep fears, as well.

If the book had pushed a couple of sociological issues a bit further, it would have been much more meaningful:

• the cast of characters is a perfect pop culture diversity display: young, hip African-American designer; poor single white mom with biracial daughter; elderly, rich white woman; radical Asian-American feminist student, etc. Getting into some deeper grime and glory of crossing class, ethnic, age and other lines would have brought useful and engaging drama to the plot. (For example, the African-American father of the biracial daughter says that her white mother cannot teach her everything she needs to know about being a person of color in this culture. This is the most insightful racial/ethnic issue raised by the book, but the white mom resists this conversation, and there is no reconciliation on this matter.)
• striking forgiveness is an important element of the story, and has fascinating social and spiritual implications that were not addressed
• that radical Asian-American feminist grad student asks the question: can ancient and traditionally women’s crafts be part of women’s liberation? This is an excellent question, and while the question is implicitly answered, some focused discussion among characters that doesn’t instantly dissolve into catchy dialog would be a gift in our current craft craze.
• one character is sacrificed to bring all other characters into greater success and happiness in their own lives. Is this supposed to have spiritual or theological implications, or is it just a plot device to keep the book from ending too happily?

Once again, I really did enjoy the book. I appreciated that the main character really put herself (and her daughter) first, but was still beloved. I am grateful that the plot didn’t totally focus on romance.

I also happen to believe that reclaiming ancient and traditionally women’s crafts can be an incredibly empowering act. I may write more about that at Sharing in the Midst of Scarcity. In the meantime, I’m learning to knit.

Filed under: books on September 26th, 2008 by Anna Lisa