“It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon. . .”
This is how Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how
she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The
Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate
togetherness: an indefinable, enviable kind of specialness.
But they are also like all families, in that the stories
they tell themselves reveal only part of the picture. Abby
and Red and their four grown children have accumulated not
only tender moments, laughter, and celebrations, but also
jealousies, disappointments, and carefully guarded secrets.
From Red’s father and mother, newly arrived in Baltimore in
the 1920s, to Abby and Red’s grandchildren carrying the
family legacy boisterously into the twenty-first century,
here are four generations of Whitshanks, their lives
unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly worn
Baltimore house that has always been their anchor.
Brimming with all the insight, humor, and generosity of
spirit that are the hallmarks of Anne Tyler’s work, A
Spool of Blue Thread tells a poignant yet unsentimental
story in praise of family in all its emotional complexity.
It is a novel to cherish.
© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy