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Books

Anne Tyler’s everyday passions

In a review of A Spool of Blue Thread, Anne Tyler’s latest and possibly last novel, Susan Hill is captivated by the everyday lives of an unremarkable Baltimore family

14 February 2015

9:00 AM

14 February 2015

9:00 AM

A Spool of Blue Thread Anne Tyler

Chatto, pp.368, £18.99, ISBN: 9780701189518

There was nothing remarkable about the Whitshanks. None of them was famous. None of them could claim exceptional intelligence, and in looks they were no more than average….Their family firm was well thought of. But then, so were many others. But like most families, they imagined they were special.

So, you know what you will get in this novel, which Anne Tyler says will be her last, and that is the stories of three generations of the Whitshanks, a straightforward, unexceptional Baltimore family.

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