A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD (2015)
Anne Tyler
Knopf, 368 pages, #
978-11018744271
* * *
After 50 years and 20 novels, you know what you'll get from
Anne Tyler: Baltimore, family dynamics, realism, humor, poignancy, and big
events chained to smaller ones. It's a testament to how well Tyler has honed
her craft that we keep coming back instead of turning away.
Here's another reason why Tyler remains so readable: her
families are plebian in the good sense of that word. Hers are not the sort of
books that try our patience because we're sick of privileged brats whining
about their luxury problems. Tyler's families are filled with infuriating
people but because they feel like kin, we open the front door. To a great extent,
her latest novel is about the many that come back versus the few that choose other
paths. This time her family is the semi-functional Whitshanks, who are dead
ordinary even though several of them think they are special. A Spool of Blue Thread tells a
four-generation story spanning seven decades, but it's not told sequentially,
and one of the major characters is the family home on Bouton Road.
The Whitshank saga begins with Junior, a Depression-era
handyman who begins a dalliance with the coquettish Linnie, unaware of the
myriad reasons why he should have looked the other way. It's a toss-up who is
more obsessed and obstinate, but the two eventually marry and sire two
children, son Redfield and daughter Merrick. Along the way Junior builds his
own construction business and one of his projects is the Bouton Road house,
originally built for one of Baltimore's solid middle-class citizens. Junior,
however, lusts after his own creation. To many, it's simply a well-built
non-nonsense kind of house, but Junior knows how he fitted every frame, groove,
and truss and is happy to play the role of informal Mr. Fixit for every problem
that arises just so he can spend time within its walls. When circumstances make
the home available for purchase, Junior jumps at the chance, though his wife
feels the neighborhood is above their station and is probably right.
The bulk of the book, though, is spent with the next
generation. Red is a chip off the old carpenter's block—both in skill and
stubbornness, but he does one thing very well when he marries Abby, a social
worker and founder of lost souls. They eventually have four children of their
own plus a lad nicknamed Stem, whom they take in when his father—one of Red's
employees—dies. Tyler plays off the truism that those who fix the problems of
others can seldom do so within their own families. Their third child, Denny
grows up—or more accurately fails to do so—to be an infuriating disappointment
to just about everyone whose path he crosses. Maybe he's mildly autistic, or
maybe he's just a loser who need his butt kicked until it meets his shoulders,
but one of the things everyone except Abby and Denny himself know—including his
nieces and nephews—is that you can't rely on Denny. He disappears for years at
a time, only to resurface with a new partner (and eventually a daughter), a new
set of problems, and tales of all the careers he begun and abandoned.
Abby is the emotional tongue and groove of Whitshank
generations two through four, but when dementia begins to claim her and Red's
health begin to fade, the children have to come up with a plan. Denny reappears
as the anti-Prodigal Son to be their caretaker—an absurdity complicated by the
fact that Stem has already moved in with his children and his wife, Nora, who
is a serious—as in very serious–Baptist.
If you think this is the most dysfunctional thing about the Whitshanks, you're
not even in the ballpark. Flashback narratives unspool various family dramas in
ways that make the Whitshanks seem like Ozzie and Harriet at one moment and the
Adams Family the next.
Spool of Blue Threads
is a page-turner that seems much shorter than 368 pages. I wouldn't call it a
profound book, but it's clever in places, including its title—whose secret
isn't revealed until near the end—and in its references to color. Of that I
will say only that blue is generally associated with loyalty, wisdom, and
tranquility; in the book it generally presages something quite different. So
let's just call this one what it is: a very good Anne Tyler book. And sometimes
that's enough.
Rob Weir
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