Spool of Blue Thread

A Spool of Blue Thread is a novel by the American writer Anne Tyler, published in 2015. It follows one Baltimore family across three generations.

The Whitshank house has a wide porch and a history, and the novel opens with the family on that porch while Abby tells the story of falling in love with Red in July 1959. The children are grown and complicated: Denny, the eldest son, cannot settle to a job or a relationship and keeps leaving; Stem was raised alongside them after his own father died and is quietly more like Red than Denny is; Amanda and Jeannie have marriages and children of their own. Tyler moves backwards into the family's history, including how Red's father Junior built the house and what that cost, and forwards into the decisions that have to be made for Abby and Red as they age. The porch, the shed and the particular way this family talks to each other carry as much of the story as the plot does.

It was the author's twentieth novel, and its title refers to the family stories that get told over and over.