1. A Novel by Silas House

2.  Born in 1971 in Lily, KY
 Nearby Leslie County is the
basis for fictional Crow
County in Clay’s Quilt
 Published in 2001, CQ is his
debut novel
 Both CQ and Eli the Good are
somewhat autobiographical
 Silas House Blog

3.  2001 Clay's Quilt - novel
 2003 A Parchment of Leaves -
novel
 2004 The Coal Tattoo - novel
 2005 The Hurting Part - play
 2008 The Hurting Part -
published play script
 2009 Something's Rising -
non-fiction, co-authored with
Jason Howard
 2009 Long Time Travelling -
(forthcoming play)
 2009 Eli the Good - novel
 2012 This is my Heart for You -
play

4. Music Journalist
Activist
Writer
• Award • Contributing • Active in the
Winning editor to No fight against
Author Depression mountaintop
• Columnist magazine removal
• Contributor • Press kit • Member of
to NPR’s “All writer for Public Outcry
Things country
Considered” music stars

5. Quilting in
Appalachia Music
Self-Realization
Loss and Grief
& Acceptance
Passion
Love of Place Domestic
and Family Violence
Coal Mining Pentecostalism
Clairvoyance
Drug & Alcohol
Addiction
The Natural
World

6. The Sizemore Family Tree
“Family Tree”
Paul &
?
Sophie
Aunt Easter
Uncle Gabe Anneth
& El
Darry Alma
Dreama Spurlock Clay
Mosely
Tristan Maggie

7.  Marguerite & Harold Singleton and son, Cake
 Marguerite was Anneth’s best friend
 Cake is Clay’s best friend
 Lolie (Uncle Gabe’s girlfriend)
 Glenn Couch (Clay’s step-father)
 Evangeline (Alma’s sister)
 Denzel (Alma’s first husband)
 Geneva & Goody
 Roe (waitress at The Hilltop Club)

8. “Snowflakes”
“I ain’t never seen
it so quiet on this
mountain.”
US Hwy 52, Southbound on Buffalo Mountain
~ Anneth (7)

9. Before Slurry Spill After
West Increases flooding, contaminates drinking Over 300,000 acres of the most beautiful
Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky water, cracks foundations of nearby and productive hardwood forests in
Blast as much as 600 feet off top of homes, showers towns with dust and noise America have already been turned into
mountains from blasting barren grasslands.
Dump the rock and debris into mountain Slurry spills destroy property and kill
streams – over 1200 miles of streams buried citizens

10. Elkhorn Coalfield, KY
• Clay becomes a miner on the day
he turns 18.
Coal Miner, Harlan Co. KY
• “Clay thought it the most noble
profession any man could have.”
(14)
Scotia Mine, KY
• Average annual deaths from
underground coal mining –
“Mining for Gold” approximately 65 (MSHA)

11.  “Easter had seen spirits and
known things since she was
a little child” (19).
“Ghost in the Tempest”
 Clair – voy – ance:
the ability to perceive
matters beyond the range
of ordinary perception
(Merriam Webster)
 Often called the sixth
sense, second sight, or
extra sensory perception
(ESP)

12. “Crazy Quilt with Button
Embellishments”
 “Clay wished that he could
piece the story of his
mother together in the
same way….It would be a
story made of scraps, but
that was all he had” (40).

13.  All types of music figure
prominently in CQ
 “A major theme in this
book is passion. And
naturally, music is the
ultimate expression of
passion.” ~ Silas House
 “Me and Bobby McGee”
 “La Campanella”
“Hear the Music”
 “Barbara Allen”
 “Old Man”

14.  Drug overdose death rates
have more than tripled in
the US since 1990
(National Vital Statistics
System).
 “I think the readers outside
the Appalachian region
may be surprised by the “Abuse Healing Quilt”
drug use in the
novel, because they may
think life is safer in rural
America.”
~Silas House

15.  Between 3-4 women are
killed every day in the US
by an intimate partner
 Women experience 4.8
million intimate partner “The Domestic Violence
assaults and rapes annually Quilt”
 “Alma had gone to him in “Denzel had thought
the middle of the night. these cruel words, these
Her face was black and put-downs and
blue from the blows of her
husband’s fists, but she still cusses, would break her.
felt at fault” (81). He had been wrong”
(178).

16. “They sat on him, flapping their
broad, shiny blood wings, their
eyes perfectly round and
opaque….Then the birds took
off, one by one, like drops of blood
being sucked up into the
clouds, up to become a part of the “Redbird Watercolor Quilt”
gray, rolling sky of January” (190)
 Nature motifs include:
 Mountains
 Redbirds
 Wildflowers
 Snow/Rain/Thunderstorms
 Ocean

17.  Many of the characters
have reasons to grieve.
What are some of those
reasons?
 “Clay screamed. He let go
of all the screams that had
been latched away inside
him ever since he was a
child, ever since he was a
little boy lying facedown in
“Signs of Grief, Signs of the snow with his dead
Growth” Quilt mother’s scarf wrapped
around his hands” (247).
“Irish Lament”

18.  “Sometimes, you just have
to accept that some things
in this life are
unbearable, and go on”
(255).
“Flying Birds” Quilts
 Each story line reaches
some type of resolution.
What are those conflict
resolutions and how do
they occur?