It is the decade of the 1950s, and we are introduced to the inhabitants of the very old Yankee town of Annett, Maine through the eyes of their young minister, Tyler Caskey. Elizabeth Strout has written about a small New England town before in her Orange Prize novel "Amy and Isabelle." This time she tells a beautifully lyrical and sad story of a congregation unable to find the warmth to help their minister through the most difficult loss of his young wife.
Tyler is left with two young daughters; one, five year old Katherine is bereft at the loss of her mother and has no one to turn to, as her father is consumed by his own grief. Katherine's isolation is one of the saddest things in the book. As the book begins with the death of Lauren, the reader is gradually given the details of how Tyler and Lauren met and fell in love, she from a wealthy Boston family, he from a poor and plain living Maine family. Their backgrounds couldn't be more different: Lauren was vivacious and free, Tyler was serious and introverted. Yet their marriage was a good one. Tyler's journey with grief and his eventual finding his center again occupies the main story of the novel. The various members of his congregation enter in and out revealing their own tragedies, one of the most important being Connie Hatch, Caskey's housekeeper. This is a story of sober, plain people unable to reveal their feelings and communicate with each other. It is told in a careful and understanding voice. This is a good book for a book club discussion.
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