HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN QUILT ...

HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN QUILT by Whitney Otto (Ballantine: $5.99). Otto uses quilting, the art of creating vibrant patterns out of scraps through imagination and patient labor, as a metaphor for the lives of the women in a small California town. Three generations of women strive to preserve their souls and sanity as they cope with marital and family problems in Grasse, a dusty, oppressively small town, where everyone knows everyone else a little too well. Otto’s prose has the ring of carefully observed truth when she describes her characters’ need for a sense of personal fulfillment that transcends the daily monotony of existence. But when she tries to extend the metaphor to include war, racism and AIDS, the author ventures beyond her depth, and the narrative founders under the heavy-handed preaching.