A spool of blue thread, by Ann Tyler

Another family story by Tyler set in her familiar Baltimore.  And like a book I read earlier, told backwards.  We meet the Whitshank family, Red and Abby, and their four children and assorted spouses and the grandchildren, in present day, and by the end of the book, understand why their family history extends only as far back as the great-grandparents in terms of knowing much about history.  The two daughters, both married to men named Hugh, and the son, Stem, are close by, but Denny, the obligatory black sheep, pops in and out of their lives unexpectedly, with little warning and not much explanation of where he has been or what he is doing.  When Red and Abby, on their late seventies, show signs of aging, the resident children rally round – Stem, and his wife Nora and three active little boys, move into the large family home that Grandfather Junior had built, as a workman, and later bought and moved his striving family into.  Then Denny shows up.  “One thing that parents of problem children never said aloud:  it was a relief when the children turned out okay, but what were the parents supposed to do with all the anger they’d felt all those years?”  Good question.  Pleasant read, not one of her best.  358 pp.