I'd never read any Anne Tyler – I've never even seen the movie adaptation of The Accidental Tourist – so while I see some reviewers saying, “Oh, Tyler is just rehashing the same characters and the same settings and the same themes all over again”, happily I don't suffer from that same disappointment of deja lire and I was able to totally lose myself in A Spool of Blue Thread; and I utterly enjoyed myself.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the story unspools itself the way it does: In the beginning scene, we meet Red and Abby Whitshank, and when Red was gruff with his son on the phone, I thought, “Oh, well this Red is a bit of a jerk, isn't he?” But then the story spools out a little further, and we see that the son, Denny, is a black sheep with a long history of goading his parents and then disappearing, and I thought, “Well, no wonder Red was caught off guard like that, isn't he just the nicest man, tying to parent the best way he knows how?” And this happened repeatedly throughout the book: just when I thought I knew exactly what this family was about by its current actions, some background information would be filled in that put everything in a different, richer, light. This never made me feel like I had been tricked either – it was like meeting a friend's uptight cousin, and as soon as she's gone, the friend tells you about the runaway husband or the delinquent teenager or the recent drug bust that is shaking up their family mythos; none of us are what we seem to be on the surface, and Tyler did a lovely job of filling in the details.
The tone of A Spool of Blue Thread is of detached amusement, and the narrator (Tyler herself?) is gentle and nonjudgmental, and sometimes makes her own voice heard, as in:
The whole family had been commenting on how helpful Denny had been lately, but then what did he do? He announced on Saturday evening that he'd be leaving in the morning.I enjoyed the intimacy that this created – as though I was engaged in a conversation instead of just passively listening – and it added another layer of connection. I also found this book to be gently funny, as in:
“The thing about caller ID is,” Red said, more or less to himself, “it seems a little like cheating. A person should be willing to take his chances, answering the phone.”I loved the idea that the Whitshanks thought that they were unique – a dynasty – but that they only go back two generations and have only three foundational stories for their family (the beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon that Abby fell for Red; the family home that Red's father built; the fiance that Red's sister stole from her best friend). I loved that Abby was such a good secret keeper that she alone knew all the family's darkest secrets, and that these secrets (for the most part) were bound to die with her. Most especially, I loved the way that this chaotic family – with their black sheep and their in-jokes and their long-held resentments – is like all families:
That was another of their quirks: they had a talent for pretending that everything was fine. Or maybe it wasn’t a quirk at all. Maybe it was just further proof that the Whitshanks were not remarkable in any way whatsoever.This wasn't a perfect book – I found the daughters, despite their opposite natures, to be pretty much interchangeable; I can't believe it never came up before that Red wore a dashiki to his own wedding (especially if it was still hanging in his closet); I don't know if I bought into the degree of Stem's anger – but those are all plot complaints and the plot isn't the main point here. A Spool of Blue Thread is gentle, but never boring, and with such an interesting and amusing tone, it explores the nature of family and how our families shape us for life. I'll happily read more Anne Tyler – and hope to find another surprise like Linnie Mae.
This is the last of the Booker nominees that I've been able to get from the library so far, so I'll likely not get the longlist read before the shortlist is revealed in September (and I don't want to just go ahead and buy any of these just in case they don't make the shortlist). So far, The Illuminations is still my favourite:
Man Booker Longlist 2015:
Bill Clegg - Did You Ever Have a Family
Anne Enright - The Green Road
Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings
Laila Lalami - The Moor's Account
Tom McCarthy - Satin Island
Chigozie Obioma - The Fishermen
Andrew O’Hagan - The Illuminations
Marilynne Robinso - Lila
Anuradha Roy - Sleeping on Jupiter
Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways
Anna Smaill - The Chimes
Anne Tyler - A Spool of Blue Thread
Hanya Yanagihara - A Little Life
I was really pleased that A Brief History of Seven Killings took the prize; even more pleased that it didn't go to A Little Life as seemed inevitable.
*****
The Man Booker Shortlist for 2015 was released September 15th, and although I can't read or review The Year of the Runaways until it's released next March (!), this is how I would rank what I've read so far:
Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings
Anne Tyler - A Spool of Blue Thread
Chigozie Obioma - The Fishermen
Hanya Yanagihara - A Little Life
Tom McCarthy - Satin Island
Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways * Unread for now
*****
The following is a spoiler!
I felt uncomfortable during the pastor's speech at Abby's funeral:
But it has occurred to me, on occasion, that our memories of our loved ones might not be the point. Maybe the point is their memories—all that they take away with them. What if heaven is just a vast consciousness that the dead return to? And their assignment is to report on the experiences they collected during their time on earth. The hardware store their father owned with the cat asleep on the grass seed, and the friend they used to laugh with till the tears streamed down their cheeks, and the Saturdays when their grandchildren sat next to them gluing Popsicle sticks. The spring mornings they woke up to a million birds singing their hearts out, and the summer afternoons with the swim towels hung over the porch rail, and the October air that smelled like wood smoke and apple cider, and the warm yellow windows of home when they came in on a snowy night. ‘That’s what my experience has been,’ they say, and it gets folded in with the others—one more report on what living felt like. What it was like to be alive.
"We know that Jean loved to knit, and to join her friends at the Y for aquacise. She had a great love for reading mysteries and dogs..."
Here, people began to chuckle and the pastor said, "Yes? Dogs? Yes that was familiar to everyone: Jean loved dogs. Was there a special dog?" When no one spoke up, he went on with the impersonal service that he was trying his best to personalise. This wasn't the pastor's fault (any more than it was for the fictional pastor in the book); this is simply what we ask of them. On the other hand, it was awkward when the pastor opened the service with what must be his "usual" remarks, and he referenced a Psalm which was one of the later readings; it was as though he was just going through his routine, not even bothering to amend anything based on the program provided by the family (and he did try to salvage this by chuckling and saying, "Yes, there's that point I was making earlier...")
And that's why I really wouldn't want a funeral service like that. Even though I don't believe I'd be around to watch it unfolding, I'm vaguely embarrassed in advance at the notion that my kids could hold a service and no one would show up; that some officiant that doesn't know me might try to summarise my life by a few hobbies that my grief-stricken children try to explain.
"We know that Krista liked to read and review books, that she was a lackluster gardener and an indifferent housekeeper..."
Dave said the same thing following that funeral (although with his greater presence in the outside world, I don't think he'd have a problem gathering a crowd to his service), and as neither of us wants to be put in the ground, we both hope that the girls just keep the whole thing simple and private (although we do both understand that funerals are for the living, not the deceased, and they are of course free to do whatever they need to do for their own purposes).
