“A Spool of Blue Thread” by Anne Tyler

Anne Tyler writes beautifully about family dynamics. As a result, this novel was quite easy for me to read in long unbroken stretches. And the ending, dealing with Denny, the troublesome son, did theoretically tie everything together very nicely, including that blue spool of thread that fell into Denny’s hand. Nevertheless, I feel that there is something missing. It might be that I have to give the book a more careful analysis to fully appreciate it. I guess I’m troubled because it turned out that Denny was the protagonist, and yet he was absent for long stretches of the book, and many of his motivations remain a mystery.