The Butlers

When I came across a slender volume called The Alice Butler Book of Hooked Rugs and Wall Hangings, I was expecting a pretty picture book. I wasn’t expecting a collection of rugs—a family scrapbook written in wool that would charm and challenge, bemuse and bewitch. The story spans decades and moves like a lazy river through place and time, and at the middle of the story, inside the frame, are a mother and son whose mutual love of rug making will bond them and manifest in a unique collection of rugs. This frame at the center of the story is not so much a picture frame as a rug-hooking frame. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself, and this fairy tale should not be rushed.