Families can be wonderful and full of love and everything sweet, it can be unicorns shitting rainbows all the time. But that isn't the story here.
Here is what I believe lives under the surface of all those perfect looking families at the beach or park or out to dinner....Family is ugly and messy, full of secrets and unspoken pain, even when there is love at the heart of it.
The Whitshank family is laid bare here, they fight, they hide things from each others and themselves.
A Spool of Blue Thread starts out as the story of Red and his wife Abby and their children, but there is a thread that runs through it, the story of Red's parents and the house Red and Abby have lived in and raised their family in.
They have two sons and two daughters. Abby is a social worker who invites strays home for dinner. Red and their son Stem run the business that was his father's. The girls have their husbands and children and work. Then there is Denny. He is the piece that seems to not fit in the puzzle that is the Whitshanks. What does Denny do when he is on one of his absences from the family? Is he the favorite or the squeakiest wheel?
Anne Tyler writes a painful yet beautiful story and the blue thread ties up nicely in the end.
(Finished May 24, 2016)
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