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When Lizzie Du Bose inherits a handmade quilt willed to her by a maternal grandmother she has never met, her life is forever changed. The figures sewn into the quilt tell the stories of Lizzie's grandmother Grace, and Grace's grandmother Ayo, who was abducted from Africa as a girl and sent as a slave to America. As Lizzie learns, the quilt seems to hold the key to a past that haunts her, at first through terrifyingly lifelike dreams, and finally through visions that seem to take Lizzie back in time, fusing her own life with the lives of Grace and Ayo.<p>One night, Lizzie awakens to find the quilt soaked in blood, and discovers horrible wounds on her wrists and back. Wracked with pain, Lizzie has no memory of having harmed herself, but she believes Ayo's manacle scars have appeared on her own body -- as real an inheritance as Grace's quilt. Now Lizzie must decide whether she has begun a descent into madness, or made an extraordinary connection to the past. A compelling and utterly intriguing tale, Stigmata weaves together the stories of three women at once blessed with a powerful vision, and cursed by a shared legacy of slavery, pain, and struggle.</p>

Publishers Weekly,Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper editor Perry shows impressive talent as a novelist in her haunting debut. Like the stigmata of the saints, Lizzie DuBose's physical manifestations of the wounds of her African American ancestors are inexplicable and harrowing. Born in 1960, Lizzie struggles to understand why she relives her great-great-grandmother Ayo's travails, first on a slave ship, later at the hands of a ruthless slaveowner. Bleeding manacle-scars and flay marks on her back convince Lizzie that she's experiencing something more than psychosomatic pain, sleepwalking injuries or the insanity for which she is hospitalized for 14 years. She knows more about Ayo's life than can be gleaned from the diary that her great-grandmother Joy kept at the turn of the century. She knows, too, what secret torment compelled her grandmother Grace to leave her children in Alabama���and to will Lizzie the trunk that holds the quilt that tells Ayo's story. Ultimately, Lizzie must craft her own quilt of Grace's life to convince her mother than her out-of-body episodes come from true memories of past lives. Only when Lizzie understands the merging of spirits with pain-filled ancestors does she come to peace. Intricate, understated and beautifully controlled, this novel introduces a quietly provocative voice. Editor, Leigh Haber; rights sold in U.K., Germany, Holland; BOMC and QPB selections; finalist for QPB New Voice Award; author tour. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Book format	Hardcover
Fiction/nonfiction	Fiction
Genre	Literature & Fiction
Publication date	August, 1998
Pages	256
Subgenre	African American & Black
Series title	No Series
Number in series	0
Edition	1
Publisher	Hachette Book Group USA
Original languages	English
Language	English
Awards won	Pulitzer Prize
Is collectible	N
Character	Lizzie Du Bose, Grace, Ayo
Binding type	Case Binding
Recording time	0 min
Retail packaging	Single Piece
Assembled product dimensions (l x w x h)	6.02 x 0.90 x 8.59 in
Assembled product weight	0.9 lb
Bisac subject heading	Fiction