Abide with Me

Elizabeth Strout is the only author besides Marilynne Robinson writing contemporary fiction with elements of faith and spirituality. Before his passing, Kent Haruf would have been on that list. It’s refreshing to find characters struggling with faith and morality in everyday matters. While millions of people muddle through such complexities in their lives, the subject is not frequently highlighted outside specific genre literature. Too often, people of faith are marginalized or outright demonized with stereotypes in mainstream literary offerings.

[Abide with Me], Strout’s second book, is as contemplative and moving as her debut, [Amy and Isabelle]. Tyler Caskey, a small-town preacher, is adrift, his life narrowing into a bleak show more existence without the presence of a God he once felt deeply. Living a daughter who’s been mute since the unexpected death of his wife, Caskey isn’t capable of attending to his parishioners. And they sense his struggle as he clumsily tries to provide spiritual guidance in the absence of his own faith. The church grows impatient with him and the gossip mill begins to turn. He is suspected of adultery and neglect, until he finally breaks down, confessing his doubt and asking for help.

Stout’s sense of human depravity is as keen as her sense of its goodness. The people in this small town are a perfect microcosm of human complexity. No one is innocent, but none are beyond hope either. In her hands, the struggle to find morality in life is elevated beyond any other concern.

Bottom Line: A rare voice writing about faith and spirituality in everyday choices.

4 bones!!!!! show less

"I wonder if we are all condemned to live outside the grace of God." Reverent Tyler Caskey in Abide with Me.
I have long wanted to read Elizabeth Strout's second novel Abide with Me , ever since I first heard about it. Strout has been one of my favorite authors since Olive Kitteridge was being passed around a group of reading church friends ten years ago. I was lucky to review galleys of My Name is Lucy Barton and Anything is Possible.

Abide by Me drew me in particular because it is about a minister in crisis whose congregation turns on him when he is most vulnerable. It tests the faith of Reverend Tyler Caskey and that of his church in West Annett, MA.

My husband is a retired clergyman and I saw close up the parsonage experience and the show more blessings and burdens congregations can be to their spiritual leaders. Strout has a wise understanding of human nature, and it is evident in this book.

Set in the late 1950s, the novel begins with Tyler deep in depression two years after his wife died of cancer, caring for his equally depressed oldest daughter while his mother has taken over his youngest daughter to raise.

"Life, he would think. How mysterious and magnificent, such abundance!"

Tyler's wife Lauren had lit the room with joy. He marveled how he had been so lucky to be loved by this woman. They married while he was at seminary. And if she was no stereotype of a pastor's wife, Tyler accepted her for who she was. In fact she was the direct opposite of what people expect a pastor's wife to be: Lauren was fashionable and pretty; she loved to gossip and shop and hated the "grim politeness" of the church women; and she had no interest in prayers or even religion. She said, "my God," and dressed wrong, and could not understand why the country roads had no road signs so people could find their way around. (I felt the same way about the lack of road signs when we were at small town church!)

The church had inherited a shabby farm house and sold the more valuable town parsonage, leaving the isolated and decrepit house for their pastor. I shuddered, how cold a thing to do, and yet how typical. It was 'good enough' for the pastor; after all he got free housing, he should be grateful. I know those 'good enough', hand-me-down, low grade, cheap fulfillment of obligations, always with the excuse that the church has no money, even when the parishioners live far better. A man of God and his wife ought to be humble and unworldly!

When Lauren sees the parsonage she cries. Oh, boy, I got that. I once cried too, seeing a run down, small, badly placed house we were to live in after enjoying nine years in a beautiful, well maintained parsonage in one of the best neighborhoods.

Relegated to the smelly and depressing house, Lauren asks to paint the living room and dining room pink. Then the children came, and she loved them dearly, but she hated the lack of money and ran up big credit bills. She missed television and girl friends and having fun, and became petulant and distant towards Tyler.

Hints are dropped about Lauren's past, how she hated her father who used to bathe her and her friends, and how her mother commented that Lauren was wild and unpredictable and they were happy to see her married. Lauren tells her one confidant that she had many beaus before Tyler.

Lauren did not accept cancer and the inevitable early death, but was angry and lashed out. She never liked the church-funded housekeeper, Connie, and banned her from the house.

Tyler liked Connie's quiet demeanor. After Lauren' death, Connie becomes important to Tyler, who depends on her to keep the house going. He has lost his joy and is just going through the motions. He fails his daughter Katheryn, who stops talking and acts out in school, her hair always knotted and unbrushed. Her teacher actually hates the child. Meanwhile, Tyler's mother is pushing a woman upon him and holds his youngest daughter hostage.

Tyler is humble and determined to be meek and always above personal feelings and bias. Women in the church turn against Tyler, feeling slighted by his lack of attention and safe distance from church politics. Connie turns up missing, accused of theft, and the rumor network starts buzzing that Tyler and Connie were involved. The people turn vicious. And I have experienced what it is like when congregants talk about the pastor behind closed doors, and stare coldly at him in public, feeling righteous, judging and unaware of their own sin in judging.

When Tyler finds Connie, she confesses acts which she has done out of love but which are considered heinous by social and moral law. Tyler has also been struggling with guilt. He forgives Connie. Can he forgive himself?

"They need to go after someone, especially when they sniff weakness under what's supposed to be strong," Tyler is told.

When Tyler reaches the end of his rope and can no longer pretend he is in control, grace comes in unexpected ways.

In the Notes, Strout says she was interested in story, not theology: how does on live life? Does it matter how one lives? "I can only hope that readers will not only be entertained by the stories I tell, but be moved to reckon with their own sense of mystery and awe," Strout ends. "Through the telling of stories and the reading of stories, we have a chance to see something about ourselves and others that maybe we knew, but didn't know we knew. We can wonder for a moment, if, for all our separate histories, we are not more alike than different after all."

And that I what I adore about reading Strout, that connection that she offers with love and sensitivity, the universal human experience of wounded people discovering how to live. show less

The day to day life of Tyler, a small town new england minister, and his parishoners. Grieving for his wife lost to cancer, Tyler and his daughter must find their equilibrium again. But the townspeople, unable to see his pain, begin to fill the mystery of Tyler's behavior through their own gossip.

The characters were so vivid and human that I found myself hating them, talking back to the book, and arguing with them as though they were actually there, and then later, I found myself forgiving and loving them. Abide with Me is a loving portrait of humanity, where anyone, even those who seem to have fallen beyond are reach, can be redeemed.

Secondo libro di Strout letto di fila, sull'entusiasmo provocato da Olive Kitteridge, dalla cui grazia compiuta questo libro - pubblicato due anni prima - risulta lontano. C'è anche qui l'ambientazione del Maine, resa con altrettanta precisione, e ci sono anche qui piccole storie di quotidianità. Ma Tyler non è un personaggio ben riuscito come Olive. Il suo essere del tutto protagonista in qualche maniera lo rende meno efficace di Olive, che spesso resta in secondo piano pur tenendo insieme tutte le vicende. E qui anche i personaggi secondari non sono resi con altrettanta forza, spesso ondeggiano tra primo e secondo piano senza un chiaro disegno. Il personaggio della piccola Katherine è molto bello, ma la sua evoluzione finale è show more svolta frettolosamente. Mi rendo conto che una recensione comparativa non è molto utile, ma tant'è: se non avete ancora letto nulla di Strout, saltate questo libro e andate diretti a Olive Kitteridge (e al massimo tornate qui dopo). show less

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 show more 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! show less

Abide with Me, like Strout's other two novels, is complex in nature, deeply provoking, and emotionally wrenching - and rendered in the most beautiful prose imaginable. There are pettiness, envy, jealousy, lust, sorrow, grief here, as well as an enviably articulate examination of questions of religious belief, compassion and love. Every major character is fully realized and compassionately drawn. There are no one-dimensional cardboard people here. Minister-protagonist Tyler Caskey and the parishioners of his small flock will stay with you for a long time after you put this book down. Perhaps one of the most compelling statements in this narrative comes late in the story, when one of Tyler's former teachers counsels him, saying: "No one, show more to my knowledge, has figured out the secret to love. We love imperfectly, Tyler. We all do. Even Jesus wrestled with that ... I suspect the most we can hope for, and it's no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love."
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. show less

It's the late 1950s and Tyler is a small-town minister suffering overwhelming grief and depression after the death of his wife. His older daughter is acting out at school and desperately needs help too. The town's inhabitants are gossipy, judgmental and running out of patience with Tyler. Their lack of compassion and understanding was a bit shocking, but given the mindset of the times it's a little easier to understand. Still, it was difficult at times to read their thoughts and conversations.

Tyler is trying to fulfill his duties and be godly like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a man Tyler greatly admires. He tries to find consolation and guidance in Bonhoeffer's writings and Scripture verses, both of which he often quotes silently in his show more thoughts. This was one of my favorite parts of the novel. I could feel Tyler's pain and his deep faith. Abide With Me is his favorite hymn. But he increasingly finds it difficult to continue on in a world that is full of grief, loneliness, and imperfection and he feels a disconnect between his faith and the world he suddenly finds himself in after his wife's death. Eventually, there is a crisis that tests not only Tyler but the townspeople.

This sounds like a sad and depressing read but due to Strout's skill and gentle beautiful prose I found it more contemplative than depressing. Strout writes about the ordinary and elevates it to the extraordinary. The ending is done well and leaves one with hope. show less