The Thread Collectors

The Thread Collectors is a 2022 historical fiction novel by Shaunna J. Edwards and Alyson Richman. Edwards and Richman, lifelong friends, came together to write a novel about the Civil War, drawing on their backgrounds as Black and Jewish women. The novel adds to the historical fiction genre by exploring the war through historically underrepresented perspectives. Through the stories of Stella, William, Jacob, and Lily, Edwards and Richman highlight themes of Resilience and Community Care, Reclaiming Agency Through Resistance, and Racist Oppression and the Pursuit of Intersectional Activism.

This guide refers to the 2022 Graydon House e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain descriptions of racism, racial violence, enslavement, lynching, sexual assault, graphic wartime violence, antisemitism, and the death of a child. This guide quotes and obscures the author’s use of the n-word.

Plot Summary

The novel begins in March 1863. In Union-controlled New Orleans, Stella answers the door to her lover, William. A man named Mason Frye enslaved both Stella and William; Frye, a staunch Confederate supporter, keeps Stella as a lover, allowing her to live in a “Creole cottage” with her older sister, Ammanee. William says goodbye to Stella. That night, he plans to flee New Orleans for Camp Parapet, a Union Army camp that is recruiting Black men to fight for the Union. Stella has helped him plan his escape route by memorizing details Frye occasionally lets slip about the location of Confederate outposts. As a parting souvenir, Stella, a talented seamstress, gives William a handkerchief she embroidered with violets.

Upon reaching Camp Parapet, William is approved to join the 3rd Louisiana Native Guard, one of the first all-Black regiments in the Union Army. William is a talented flutist, having first learned to play on the plantation of his first enslaver, Clinton Righter. He is assigned a position as an army musician, playing a brass flute Frye gave him. William meets and befriends the 3rd Native Guard’s drummer boy, a 10-year-old boy named Teddy. Teddy was born free but forced to join the army after a group of white men broke into his home and murdered both of his parents.

William also befriends a Jewish man named Jacob Kling, who plays the cornet in an army band. The two bond over their shared love of music. Jacob’s wife, Lily Kling, is a spirited abolitionist and feminist; Jacob has written an original song for her called “Girl of Fire,” which soon becomes a rallying cry for the Union soldiers. In the frequent letters she exchanges with Jacob, Lily details her activism in support of the Union army. Jacob’s brother, Samuel, who lives in Satartia, Mississippi, supports the Confederacy, leading Jacob to fear that they will one day meet on the battlefield. The army marches to Port Hudson, where the Native Guard is sent into battle against the Confederates in a poorly organized siege which results in heavy casualties to Black soldiers.

In New Orleans, a woman named Miss Hyacinth contacts Stella. Her son, Jonah, plans to flee enslavement. Miss Hyacinth asks Stella to make a map of the safest escape route. Recalling the details she’s learned from Frye, Stella embroiders a color-coded map on a scrap of cloth. Word spreads, and she is soon asked to make maps for other Black men seeking freedom. A month after William’s departure, Stella learns that she is pregnant, but she is unsure if the child belongs to Frye or William. In October, she gives birth to William’s son, a baby boy who she names Wade. Shortly afterward, Frye shows up at the cabin bleeding profusely; a pipe bomb that he planned to plant at Union headquarters exploded prematurely, injuring him. Upon discovering Wade at the cabin, Frye explodes in a fury, threatening to sell the baby off. Stella and Ammanee poison Frye with a tincture of wolfsbane flowers. They claim that he died of his injuries, and the murder goes undiscovered.

On Christmas Day, Jacob and William take Teddy into the woods near the army camp to pick out a Christmas tree. Teddy excitedly runs ahead, and an unknown assailant shoots him dead. As Jacob gives chase, he falls and badly injures his ankle. William carries Jacob through the woods until he comes upon a small shack. The woman inside is racist and mentally unwell; believing Jacob to be her missing son, Johnny, she locks him in the house and forces William to sleep in her shed. When Jacob develops an infection, the woman orders William to the nearest town to buy medicine. Alone in the woods, William sketches out a rudimentary map on a piece of Jacob’s sheet music. When he reaches town, a group of Confederate soldiers attack and beat him. The men try and fail to lynch him. After receiving further racist abuse from a convoy of Union soldiers, a defeated William makes his way back to New Orleans. He reunites with Stella and Wade, the three of them now free to live together. Their newfound happiness is marred when Ammanee falls seriously ill after visiting a Union contraband camp.

When Lily doesn’t hear from Jacob for a month, she makes the perilous journey down to the South and begins searching Union hospitals. She stays with Samuel, whose household has fallen into disrepair because of the war. When her search proves fruitless, Lily visits Union headquarters in New Orleans in a last-ditch attempt to locate Jacob. Though the men there refuse to help her, Lily is directed to Stella and William’s cottage after she overhears a man humming “Girl of Fire.” Stella presents Lily with the embroidered map, which she uses to track down Jacob and bring him safely back to New Orleans.

Grateful for Stella and William’s help, Lily and Jacob offer their friends passage up North and a job for William at Lily’s father’s music store. While Stella contemplates the decision, Ammanee’s illness takes a turn for the worse. Stella visits her sister and comforts her on her deathbed. After Ammanee’s funeral, Stella, William, and Wade join Lily and Jacob on a steamboat headed for Chicago.