Anne Tyler is a great storyteller. Her stories are generally about families. I've just read "A Spool of Blue Thread" and thought some of you might like it because one of its themes is caregiving. The first third of the book focuses on an elderly woman who doesn't accept that she is declining and her adult children who try to take care of her. I think it presents both sides of this conflict very well. It reminded me of many posts on this site! The rest of the book is also about caring about and for family. Tyler is very good at showing an event from several different perspectives.
Still. There can't be more than a couple of hundred of them..?
"I can stand it no longer. I look down at my plate. Stewed something under pale gravy with a side of pockmarked Jell-O.
“Nurse!” I bark. “Nurse!”
One of them looks up and catches my eye. Since it’s clear I’m not dying, she takes her sweet time getting to me.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Jankowski?”
“How about getting me some real food?”
“I beg your pardon?”“It’s not nursery food.”
“Yes it is. There’s no substance. Look—” I say, dragging my fork through the gravy-covered heap. It falls off in glops, leaving me holding a coated fork. “You call that food? I want something I can sink my teeth into. Something that crunches. And what, exactly, is this supposed to be?” I say, poking the lump of red Jell-O. It jiggles outrageously, like a breast I once knew.
“It’s salad.”
“Salad? Do you see any vegetables? I don’t see any vegetables.”
“It’s fruit salad,” she says, her voice steady but forced.
“Do you see any fruit?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact I do,” she says, pointing at a pock. “There. And there. That’s a piece of banana, and that’s a grape. Why don’t you try it?"
....and the young man convincing.
The end made me roll my eyes a little but smile anyway - who doesn't love it when the hero wins?
I am reading A Man Called Ove, have been working on it for awhile. I am enjoying it. Just a funny, while trying so hard to be grumpy, old man. The book is quite humorous in places.
I too, enjoy Margaret Truman books. Have some tucked away in a box, next move they will be unpacked.