Anne Tyler's 'A Spool of Blue Thread' divides critics
Anne Tyler鈥檚 novel 鈥淎 Spool of Blue Thread鈥� is receiving a wide range of reviews, with some critics praising it as one of the best books to be released this month and others dismissing it as merely a retread of her past novels.
鈥淏lue鈥� follows multiple generations of the Whitshanks family, who live in Baltimore. The story progresses from great-grandparents living in the 1920s to great-grandchildren living in the present.
Both the Monitor and Amazon selected 鈥淏lue鈥� as one of the best books of February, with Monitor staff writing that 鈥渢he writer has lost none of her signature charm. Tyler fans 鈥� new and old 鈥� will be delighted.鈥� Amazon editorial director Sara Nelson called the novel 鈥渧intage Anne Tyler.鈥�
writer Beth Anderson of Michigan鈥檚 Ann Arbor District Library agreed with the praise, writing that 鈥淸Tyler鈥檚] writing has lost none of the freshness and timelessness that has earned her countless awards and accolades. Now 73, she continues to dazzle with this multigenerational saga, which glides back and forth in time with humor and heart and a pragmatic wisdom that comforts and instructs.鈥�
However, had more mixed feelings about the novel, with staff writing that the book is 鈥渢horoughly enjoyable but incohesive鈥� [a section] delving into Whitshank family lore鈥� 聽proves jarring for the reader, who at this point has invested plenty of interest in the siblings. Despite this, Tyler does tie these sections together, showing once again that she鈥檚 a gifted and engrossing storyteller.鈥�
And critic Michiko Kakutani found Tyler鈥檚 novel to be the opposite of fresh. 鈥淚t recycles virtually every theme and major plot point she has used in the past and does so in the most perfunctory manner imaginable,鈥� Kakutani wrote. 鈥淢embers of the clan feel like merely generic figures in a middling middlebrow novel: oddly lacking in emotional specificity and psychological ballast鈥� children are delineated in similarly bland, abstract terms鈥� The problem is that these characters have insinuated themselves so shallowly in the reader鈥檚 mind that it鈥檚 hard to care much what happens to any of them鈥� a disappointing performance by this talented author, who seems to be coasting here on automatic pilot.鈥�
