Customer Reviews

Abide with Me: A Novel

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Novelists, like high divers, should get extra points for degree of difficulty. Elizabeth Strout set her first novel in a dying New England mill town. She took the story of a sullen teenager and her tightly-wound mother and made something special of it. She pulls off another difficult maneuver in Abide with Me, which excavates the emotional lives of a Protestant congregation in rural Maine, a place where people pride themselves on keeping emotions buttoned down and zippered up.

The year is 1959. Tyler Caskey, a minister in West Annett, Maine has recently lost his wife to cancer. He's trying to get past his grief, dress and feed his two little girls, and tend to the needs of his congregation, but his efforts are getting as ragged as the cuffs of his dress shirts. The book starts slowly, and it's hard at first to tell one taciturn member of Tyler's congregation from another. About a third of the way in, a few faces start to separate out from the crowd: the church deacon Charlie Austin, who hates his day-to-day life and escapes it by visiting a naughty lady down in Boston; Tyler's housekeeper Connie Hatch, who has a secret that's growing in her like a tumor; Rhonda Skillings, a school guidance counselor besotted with Freud's swirling sexual underworld.

Tyler keeps turning over memories of his wife Lauren. She taught him about love, but this girl from a well-to-do Boston family wasn't really cut out to be a small-town minister's wife. The congregation, smitten with Tyler, never warmed up to Lauren. As Tyler feels his faith slipping away, his zeal for his calling starts to diminish. The congregation senses his withdrawal, and resents it. His daughter Katherine is acting out all over, and Tyler's not prepared to deal with it. Connie Hatch finally reveals her secret, which precipitates several kinds of crisis. Tyler and his congregation have to decide if they can continue forward together.

This is a book that's easy to respect: the folks of West Annett are finely rendered, their plights feel real, and the resolution is unexpected and satisfying. But it's hard to warm up to these characters. The concerns of the congregation seem selfish and small-minded. For instance, it's not clear why so many congregants, including her kindergarten teacher and Sunday school teacher, have so little compassion for Tyler's daughter Katherine, a five year old who just lost her mother. Tyler's own mother comes across as a cold-blooded bitch. Tyler himself lacks that core of will you'd expect in a charismatic minister. Admittedly we're seeing him during a bad time, but he's so passive that the reader, like his congregation, may start to lose patience with him.

Pleasure comes from the superbly detailed setting, from the nuances of Tyler's thought as he explores the waxing and waning of his faith, and from the assurance with which the author gathers up the disparate plot strands and brings them together at the end of the book. Strout's characters may not be visited by grace, but they certainly earn their hard-won conclusions. They are moved by what happens in their small town, and you will be too.

Five Stars!! Spinning off of the theme of life in small town northern New England, Elizabeth Strout conjures up another winner of a novel detailing the inner most feellngs of the human condition and inter-personal relationships, buffeted by duty, change, and tragedy. Much like the preceding novel, "Amy and Isabelle", set in a different fictional New England town, this is MESMERIZING writing.

We already know from the editorial reviews that this novel is heading towards some sort of a surprise near the end, but in getting there Ms Strout's prose makes us want this journey to continue much longer! Considering the prosaic subject matter, the life of small town preacher Tyler Caskey, and his family, friends, parishioners, and gossipy townsfolk, she conjures up one heck of a fictional ride. Tyler, whose center of gravity balances between God's word and layman philosophers. Ms Strout effectively draws us in and keeps us beguiled with her rich cast of characters, her 'attention to detail' (Connie's hair, for instance; the minister's old shirt; or the effects of fall weather) and her elegant, stark prose, peppered with down-home phrases like "skitter-skatter". By the time Connie Hatch steps into the forefront, this novel is riveting in it's intensity and beauty. The church congregation scene is flat out wonderful writing, as are the final scenes between Tyler and George.

I guessed at a different ending, but Ms Strout is firmly in control and takes us where her compass wants us to be and it's a wonderful ending. This is a great fictional study in small town complexities and humanity. And she leaves us wanting more! Highly Recommended. Five Wonderful Stars!!

(Note: I found the Fournier typeface to be very elegant and readable. This review is based on an unabridged digital download, which makes digital disc a great new home storage alternative for novels. Thank you, Random House!)

I came away from a long read of 'The Terror' looking for something light and ran across 'Abide with Me' in the book store. I admit it was the cover that caught my eye of the sad little girl. This book was exactly what I expected. It was an easy read set in a somewhat depressing time about a minister and his daughter and what happens after his wife dies. I was a little let down that the issues with the daughter were not more played out and came to a tidy end after one converstation between them. The author seemed to hint at some sexual abuse between the wife's father and her sister and perhaps even her friends but that too was never made clear so we were left to wonder if this was what played into the wife's kleptomaniac/shallow/self centered personality. Still a very good read that I looked forward to picking up everyday and reading.

Elizabeth Strout won me with her debut novel, Amy and Isabelle. I found it to be both affecting and compelling, written by one who felt a deep affection for the characters she created and also possessed a sympathetic understanding of the human condition. The same might be said of Abide With Me set in West Annett, Maine.

The year is 1959 and this small New England town is like many others. It is a place where some secrets are kept and others are whispered. A pillar of the community is Tyler Caskey, a minister with a loyal following, who strives to serve his congregants well.

When is wife dies quite suddenly Tyler is left with two young girls, Jeannie, the baby of the family goes to live with her grandmother and Katharine who at the age of five shows various signs of an emotional disturbance stays in West Annett with her father.

Tyler has his hands full, trying to remain steadfast despite his heartrending loss and care for Katharine. When her teacher makes an appointment with him to discuss the child's problems she misreads Tyler, finding him to be imperious rather than concerned. She spreads her opinion of him throughout the town.

There is but one friend for Tyler and that is Connie his housekeeper. She is someone in whom he can confide. When he attempts to bring Jeannie home to be cared for by Connie, his mother strenuously objects. In addition, Tyler's very world seems to be crumbling about him as his beliefs are shaken.

One again Elizabeth Strout has crafted a story of timeless appeal with life, God, honor, and respect as the foundation for her narrative.

Actress Gerrianne Raphael is a versatile performer with theatre credits ranging from Man of a Mancha to Li'l Abner to Candide with the Philadelphia Opera. Her reading brings tears to the eyes and joy to the heart as listeners are carried to a more than satisfying denouement.

- Gail Cooke

Elizabeth Strout's "Abide with Me" is the story of Tyler Caskey, a minister in the small town of West Annett, Maine, in 1959. Tyler had been married to Lauren, a flighty woman from a wealthy family who could not adjust to living on a tight budget and acting the part of a "minister's wife." Lauren bore Tyler two daughters before she died, leaving the widower bewildered and shaken. Tyler's overbearing mother, Margaret, takes in his toddler, Jeannie, while Tyler tries to manage with five-year-old Katherine. He depends on his devoted housekeeper, Connie, to keep things afloat. However, since Lauren's death, Katherine has been nearly mute with grief and she has begun to act out in school. Although Tyler has always been a popular minister whose congregation admires his impassioned sermons, rumors begin to spread that he is not the man they thought he was. Soon, Tyler questions his vocation, and his faith in himself and the townspeople he has served so well starts to crumble.

One of Strout's strengths is her attention to detail. She describes West Annett so vividly that the reader has a perfect mental picture of this place and its inhabitants. Strout depicts the bored housewives who have little to occupy their minds other than shopping, cooking, cleaning, charity work, and gossip. Tyler's job is a difficult one. He has to advise his congregants when they are in trouble, keep the church going on the limited funds that are available, and withstand the barbs of certain outspoken individuals who have their own agendas.

The author's portrait of Tyler is magnificent. He is a gentle and highly intelligent man, whose idol is the great Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer, who was born in 1906, defied the Nazis and gave up his life for his beliefs. Tyler constantly quotes Bonhoeffer and thinks about his teachings, especially the statement that "man's sin was flight from responsibility." Tyler wants to take responsibility for his parish and for his family, but he lacks the joy and enthusiasm that used to propel him.

"Abide with Me" is eloquent, literate, and filled with gorgeous imagery. It has the ring of truth. We are all imperfect human beings struggling to live with our frailties, to give and receive love, and to meet life's hardships and obstacles with as much grace as we can muster. However, at times, we fail and what should we do when we disappoint ourselves and others disappoint us? How can we go on when our religious faith falters? Strout provides no easy answers, but she makes the reader empathize with her flawed characters, and we inevitably see ourselves in them. Although the book takes place in the late fifties, when women were repressed, racism was rampant, and the various social classes were strictly stratified, there is a universality in this work that still makes it worth reading today.

I really enjoyed Strout's earlier novel, AMY AND ISABELLE, so when this book came out (seven years later!), I was willing to give it a read, sight unseen.

ABIDE WITH ME is a testament to Strout's skills. She manages to get an avowed secular humanist (me!) to dive deeply into this portrait of a Congregational minister and father who is in deep mourning for his wife. Feeling that his travails are minor compared to the losses that others throughout history have faced, he starts to lose faith in himself. Eventually, his daughters and congregation also begin to lose their faith in him as well.

Although the book deals with inner turmoil, there is a lot of dryly spun New England humor in it as well, a leavening that makes for a very satisfying prose mixture. I just hope that I don't have to wait another seven years for Strout's next gem of a novel.

Describing a whole world in a few words, as someone said, and such a resonating world - this is what great literature is made of.

I couldn't put this book down. This is a writer with a sure grasp of the relationships between men and women, our foolish and guileless hopes and disappointments, how the landscape of our lives is reflected by everything around us. Every word in this book is true, even though it is fiction.

The ending of the book doesn't disappoint, either. Truly a marvelous work that will live in my mind for quite awhile.

I think it deserves 6 stars.

I adored this author's "Amy and Isabelle" from cover to cover;
I didnt start to love this book until the last 1/3. At first the characters were, to me, unlikable, and the cruelty across the board hard to take. If you can hang in there, the story of this minister's painful journey becomes beautiful and inspiring.

This is truly a great book. This book is about life and human nature and it so well written and has so much meaning. I think Elizabeth Strout is on par with Fitzgerald and other great writers who delve into the grittiness of life. But this is in no way a depressing book. It is just the opposite. One of the best novels I have read in a long time.

Just as when I read Amy and Isabelle, I was struck here by how Strout turns "quiet" on its head in Abide with Me. In the sense that this book takes place in a tiny and hard New England village, in the sense that it concerns a minister and his daughter treading at first ever so lightly in this village, it *is* quiet. And the landscape of Amy and Isabelle was "quiet" in the same sense: a mother and daughter living in one house, at first barely making any impressions at all. But what is distinctly not quiet here is what is going on inside the heads of these characters. And that is what Strout does so well: reveal the inner complexities of just about anyone, including those who at first you'd never believe could be interiorly complex. I think she does this best with Katherine, the minister's kindergartner, who is practically mute but who has a rich, thoughtful, even witty interior life. But many, if not most, of the characters in this novel, at first seeming to conform to the stereotype of hard, rough, private New Englanders, are revealed as having tremendous private pain, passion, and sensitivity. Meanwhile, the central figure in Abide with Me, the minister, starts out with a rich exterior in the form of his philosophical sermonizing, but hardly any interior at all. This is his lesson to learn, and Strout shows us exactly how he comes to gain self-awareness. Bravo to Strout for her characterizations. This is a beautiful book.