Betsy Hess-behrens

Crazy Quilt: a Love Story from the Greatest Generation Betsy Hess-behrens

Three overlapping relationships are pieced together in Crazy Quilt, a story that unfolds during World War II, covers the social/sexual upheavals of the Sixties and Seventies, and opens to the future: Anne (divorced at 46) and her mother (widowed at 73) both face single life as older women whose career aspirations had been abandoned at marriage; Anne and David (six years older than Anne's college daughter) are caught up in an unbidden, but deeply loving and enriching liaison outside of cultural norms; Ernie and Byron (in parallel circumstances) are very much involved in her recovery from a misguided and devastating action. An unexpected ending suggests the possibility of finding meaning and renewal despite loss, wrong choices, and self-doubt: it is the ultimate task of a lifetime.