A Spool of Blue Thread

      This novel had no exciting action or daring rescues, it was just the story of three generations of the Whitshank family and the Baltimore house that they lived in.  It was about their personalities, their relationships, their foibles, and the interactions with each other.  The family members have to deal with the interpersonal situations that life throws at them within a close knit family.  Tyler’s writing made the Whitshanks feel like a real family and that made the novel engrossing and interesting.  I enjoyed secretly observing the Whitshanks as they dealt with the twists and turns of their lives.

    The book is not written in chronological order, and although it skips back and forth between generations, it touches on the relevant moments each generation experiences which fit nicely into the total storyline.  

           The plot begins during the Depression, when twenty year old Junior Whitshank, is forced to flee his home and family in the rural south, after he was caught with an overdeveloped girl who unbeknownst to him, turned out to be very underaged.   He ends up in Baltimore where he takes up work as a carpenter and strives to rebuild his life to become a talented builder.  

            After becoming a building contractor, Junior builds a beautiful house for a rich patron, he then becomes obsessed with the carefully crafted house that he created.  He manages to become the handyman for the wealthy family who own the house, and eventually achieves his secret goal when the owners move, and he is able to buy the house, making it his own, for his young family. 

    Also intriguing is the story of Junior’s son Red and his wife Abbie, who later inherit and live in the house with their children.  As their troublesome son Denny matures, he becomes very undependable, causing all sorts of grief, heartbreak, and disappointment to Red and Abbie, while Stem, the very young boy who they adopted after one of Red’s employees dies, becomes a dependable, generous, and stable member of the family.

    I enjoyed reading how the small quirks of the family members grated  on other individuals in the family and how each strived  to achieve their desires.  Anne Tyler did a wonderful job of showing family dynamics, while creating a very interesting novel despite mostly dealing with mundane situations; things that most families have seen or experienced.  

            Reading A Spool of Blue Thread, has left me eager to delve into the other novels Anne Tyler has written.

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