A Spool of Blue Thread

13 hrs. 41 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Anne Tyler

Narrator Leontina Brotskaya

Description

Whethens always amazed with their closeness and a barely discernible peculiarity. It was a family that everyone, in a good way, envied. But like every family, they also had a secret, hidden reality—something they themselves hardly even understood. In their luggage, Abby, Red, and four grown children have not only wonderful memories of joy, laughter, and family holidays, but also disappointments, jealousy, and carefully guarded secrets. In Anne Tyler’s novel—one of the best contemporary writers—the story of three generations of one family unfolds: touching, yet far from sentimental; dramatic, but also ironic; very deep, yet simple.

Anne Tyler is sometimes called the “Northern Fannie Flagg,” but her stories are much closer to A.P. Chekhov’s tales—subtle, sad, funny, and unbelievably profound. She tells them in a quiet, lightly mocking voice, and they keep resonating in the soul for a long time: you think about them, and your own life appears in a new light—much more meaningful. Some books flare up like blinding fireworks, but quickly go out, leaving behind a black sky in which rare but real stars glow—among them Anne Tyler’s novels.

Anne Tyler is a Pulitzer Prize laureate; in 2015 her novel “The Blue Catbird” (“The Spool of Blue Thread”) was nominated for the Booker Prize.