A Quilting of Scars – Book Review by Cece Scott
A Quilting of Scars – Book Review by Cece Scott
Lucy E. M. Black’s, @lucyemblack talent for storytelling is such that it is impossible to be a casual, eyeglasses perched-on-your-nose kind of reader when delving into her books. (The Marzipan Fruit Basket, Eleanor Courtown, Stella’s Carpet, The Brickworks, and Class Lessons: Stories of Vulnerable Youth).
In her new book, “A Quilting of Scars,” (Now Or Never Publishing Co., October 15, 2025), we quickly become an integral part of protagonist Larkin Beattie’s daily undertakings. A good old Canadian yarn that is wrapped in sexual tension and an underlying “who-done-it mystery,” there is a timeless relevance to sitting at the kitchen table with Larkin and his parents in their farmhouse, which is located in the fictional town of Cemetery Hill, in the Georgian Triangle, circa 1909.
The overriding farm and family-first dynamics is reminiscent of the popular CBC family saga, Heartland, but Larkin’s story, mired under the draconian influence of Victorian ideology, is shrouded in the kind of dark secrets that his family, community, and church must never discover.
Within the first few pages Black immerses us in the underlying drama that runs throughout the book, layers upon layers of relationships that are quilted together in an intriguing mosaic of cultural mores.
And so, when neighbours spot the farmhouse of Larkin’s good friend, thirteen-year-old Paul Skinner ablaze, with two bodies found in the burned-out remains, sadness quickly turns to suspicion, then condemnation, when it is discovered that Paul’s father, Silas, and his brother, Elgin, were in fact murdered. Certainly, it is no secret in the community that Silas is a ne’er-do-well, a man prone to beating his sons in the rage of the moment. Larkin’s “ma” and “pa” take the severely burned Paul, who was in the farmhouse at the time of the fire, into their home before driving him to the ship building hub of Collingwood to get medical help.
However, when Larkin and “pa” return to the hospital for a visit, they discover Paul has disappeared without a trace.
As the days and months go by, the mounting sense of tension that Black builds throughout the pages is gripping, which quickens with the encounter Larkin shares with the runaway Paul in an old hunting cabin that the two discovered when they were eleven.
It is a rendezvous that leaves Larkin full of angst and shame, the secret of his deeds with Paul a discovery that will destroy him within the Victorian mindset — that homosexuality is immoral and unspeakable.
A former educator with thirty years experience, Black interacted with many young people who were terrified to reveal their sexual identities at both the community and church levels. It is the knowledge of those judgements that Black uses to expertly craft the clandestine relationship between Larkin and Paul.
Black’s writing is raw, as lyrical in its simplicity as it is emotionally complicated. Painted with the coarse brush of reality, “the spring earth pissing away the last of winter,” and the quiet unassuming usage of “shit” and “fuck” interspersed here and there throughout the dialogue, sparks an pragmatic commitment between the reader and the narrative. Along the way, we are gifted with some simple but resonant life lessons, including Larkin’s “ma” telling him that it is not about how one fails, but rather how one makes up for it. And, that people connect and then move on; that we can’t expect to go through life being collectors of people.
And so, “A Quilting of Scars,” becomes the metaphor for the layer upon layer of life events that Larkin experiences, both the routine tasks of farming and breeding prize stallions that sit like band aids atop the deeply scared and embedded layers of forbidden sex, scandalous secrets, and emotional longings that run like threads through Larkin’s jumbled heart.