A Spool of Blue Thread

A Novel

By: Anne Tyler

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr

"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 21st 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.

©2015 Anne Tyler (P)2015 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Tyler show[s] once again that she's a gifted and engrossing storyteller." ( Publishers Weekly)

"...Tyler is as fleet and graceful as a skater, her prose as transparent as ice... We get swept up in the spin of conversations, the slipstream of consciousness, and the glide and dip of domestic life, then feel the sting of Tyler's quick and cutting insights into unjust assumptions about class, gender, age, and race... Tyler's long dedication to language and story [is] an artistic practice made perfect in this charming, funny, and shrewd novel of the paradoxes of self, family, and home." (Donna Seaman, Booklist)

"It is wonderful to pick up a novel from a bonafide literary superstar. A Spool of Blue Thread is Anne Tyler's 20th novel and it shows in every flawless sentence... A stunning novel about family life which just rings so true - it depicts the bonds and the tensions, the love and the exasperation beautifully... A terrific novel." ( The Bookseller, UK (Book of the Month))

"Narrator Kimberly Farr's experience with character-driven novels is evident from her nuanced performance of this compelling story.... One key to Farr's success with this audiobook is the wide range of emotions she employs to capture the characters' individual temperaments as they cope with marriage, parenthood, aging, and adult sibling rivalry." ( AudioFile)

A must-read spool

My first Anne Tyler book. Enjoyed her descriptive phrases. Chose this novel after reading the positive review in the New York Times on Sunday, February 15, 2015. Everyone has characters like this in their own families.

Disappointed

I'm not sure what I thought this book was going to be like, however I thought it was very disjointed and jumped around way too much. Then all if the story lines just ended.

Satisfactory

This was a fast listen because I wanted to know what happened to the Whitshank family, but I kind of felt the ending somewhat unsatisfactory.

Good Story

The Spool of Blue thread was my first audiobook. A good story and so enjoyed the freedom of my hands and eyes.

Eh

This was really good storytelling. That's about it. I kept expecting it to go somewhere but it never really did. It was kind of like listening to somebody tell their story why you're sitting next to him on the train and when it ended it just ended and that was that. Not very profound.

It was pretty good

Not crazy about the end. But the story was pretty good. Good development of the characters. Not bad at all

Went Too Long

The story could have ended before getting into the Junior/Linney May part. From then on it lost something. Not my favorite Ann Tyler.

A pleasant surprise

It became immensely more enjoyable when I began to realize it is a different genre than most of what I read. I began to appreciate it as similar to a conversation and recollections of memories than an action packed story. Until then, I kept waiting for something to happen... After that realization, I sat back and enjoyed it.

Classic Tyler

Wonderful story and charactors so real.
I felt a loss when it was over...
U know a book is great when you feel that way.

Annoying narration

I used to enjoy Ann Tyler's books, but found the narration to be so annoyingly expressive that I can't even tell if I liked the story.