Tyler is a master at capturing the truth in the ordinary. The details of the family interactions might be unique to the Whitshanks but the emotional essence is universal. In Anne Tyler’s hands, you find yourself nodding in agreement and turning the pages. In some writers’ hands, a story line like this might find you stifling a yawn and turning to Facebook.
It starts to get a bit crowded in the old family home. Soon their other son–the one they always worry about–arrives from out of town and announces that, never fear, he will handle everything. She describes these moments as “…her minor little inconsequential glitches–her ‘brain jumping the track’…” Entirely unbidden, their youngest son, his wife, and three young grandsons (and dog) move in to care for them. Red and Abby Whitshank’s four grown children become concerned when Red has a minor heart attack and Abby begins to have brief episodes of forgetfulness. Read carefully, however, and you’ll find it homespun only on the surface. And the title of her latest novel, “A Spool of Blue Thread,” might seem to confirm just that. It’s true that Tyler’s novels focus on everyday family life, with all its individual eccentricities and interrelationships.
Anne Tyler, whose previous books include The Accidental Tourist, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Digging to America, has sometimes been characterized as a writer of “women’s fiction.” It’s a description that has followed her for decades, even though her work appeals to both men and women, even though her work often explores the male psyche–and even though her admirers include authors as varied as John Updike and Nick Hornby.
0 kommentar(er)
