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Loading... Abide with Meby Elizabeth Strout
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  TimBazzett | Dec 16, 2009 |  Oh how I like this book! The writing is exquisitely detailed; the characters are magnificently developed and the scenery of the New England small town atmosphere is painted with a wonderful artistic brush of an amalgamation of impressionist soft tones contrasted with a stark canvas of sharp layers of vivid, clearly defined lines. Tyler Caskey is an intelligent, well-liked, handsome minister of West Annett Maine. Strout places him and the town folk in a late 1950's setting when even tiny rural towns are cognizant of the threat of Russian domination and the build up of nuclear arms. While the fuzzy uncertain world is changing as two super powers wrestle for solutions, amid this backdrop, is the stark portrait and fall out of 1950's values and small mindedness and petty gossip. The reader realizes that human nature is frail and personal relationships are exceedingly difficult, thus, perhaps world peace is an illusion. Tyler's wife died of cancer leaving him with two little girls, one of whom is badly acting out. Parishioners never warmed to his beautiful, cosmopolitan wife and thus now, rather than help, the misguided townsfolk cackle and harm. Rather than embrace, the mean spirited ninnies throw stones. Using the wonderful hymn Abide With Me, Stout shows redemption in both Tyler Caskey and the town folk as they learn that giving love is difficult, and accepting it is even harder. Five Stars! (  )6  Whisper1 | Nov 19, 2009 | I have Olive Kitteridge on my TBR shelf, and I plan to read it soon. But I was able to get this earlier book by Strout on CD at the library, so I’ve been listening to it on my drives to work. In Abide with Me, Strout tells the story of Tyler Caskey, a widower and a minister in a small New England town. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn about not only about the trials that Tyler faces in the early years of his marriage and his wife’s rocky transition to life as a minister’s wife, but also about the challenges that face his parishioners in West Annett. Throughout the story, the people of West Annett spent a good deal of dealing gossiping about each other, but very little time trying to understand or connect with each other. When moments of human connection do occur, they are poignantly described. I remember one moment especially, when Tyler’s five-year-old daughter Katherine is given love, attention, and an Alice in Wonderland lunchbox by a neighbor, that brought me to tears. At first, I was mad at the characters in the story. Why were moments of understanding and kindness so rare? But perhaps their oversights were noticeable only to me, the omnipotent reader. I had the benefit of knowing the pain or uncertainty or loneliness felt by each character, and so I couldn’t believe it when others didn’t respond with care to those feelings. But Strout helped me realize that the people of West Annatt were not neglectful, but unaware. Strout is at her best as she reveals the troubles of her characters not only to her readers, but also to each other. (  )1 porch_reader | Sep 27, 2009 | Abide With Me is a lovingly written story of a man, a family and a town who have lost their way. The story unfolds quietly and slowly; resolution does not come quickly or easily, but there is much to learn about faith, patience and understanding from its reading. Elizabeth Strout is masterful in crafting place and time that feel real, and for creating characters that touch the heart with their humanity. I would have preferred the story reveal more of its secrets, and I was impatient at times for things to happen or to understand why, but at the book's end, I was very glad to have read it. ( )1 readaholic12 | Aug 12, 2009 | kahlee2000 | Jul 14, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0812971825, Paperback)In her luminous and long-awaited new novel, bestselling author Elizabeth Strout welcomes readers back to the archetypal, lovely landscape of northern New England, where the events of her first novel, Amy and Isabelle, unfolded. In the late 1950s, in the small town of West Annett, Maine, a minister struggles to regain his calling, his family, and his happiness in the wake of profound loss. At the same time, the community he has served so charismatically must come to terms with its own strengths and failings–faith and hypocrisy, loyalty and abandonment–when a dark secret is revealed.Tyler Caskey has come to love West Annett, “just up the road” from where he was born. The short, brilliant summers and the sharp, piercing winters fill him with awe–as does his congregation, full of good people who seek his guidance and listen earnestly as he preaches. But after suffering a terrible loss, Tyler finds it hard to return to himself as he once was. He hasn’t had The Feeling–that God is all around him, in the beauty of the world–for quite some time. He struggles to find the right words in his sermons and in his conversations with those facing crises of their own, and to bring his five-year-old daughter, Katherine, out of the silence she has observed in the wake of the family’s tragedy. A congregation that had once been patient and kind during Tyler’s grief now questions his leadership and propriety. In the kitchens, classrooms, offices, and stores of the village, anger and gossip have started to swirl. And in Tyler’s darkest hour, a startling discovery will test his congregation’s humanity–and his own will to endure the kinds of trials that sooner or later test us all. In prose incandescent and artful, Elizabeth Strout draws readers into the details of ordinary life in a way that makes it extraordinary. All is considered–life, love, God, and community–within these pages, and all is made new by this writer’s boundless compassion and graceful prose. From the Hardcover edition. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:18 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
Because Abide with Me is in the end, perhaps more than anything else, about love. I cannot emphasize enough that this is simply a beautiful novel. Beautiful. (