When Red has a heart attack, and then suffers from minor discomfort that causes him to seek medical help, his children are once again left to figure out the house situation. Despite this, her death unhinges what little of the family is held together.
Abby’s kids have always thought her overprotective, and even Red found her eccentric at times. Both Abby and the dog are killed, and the remaining family members are left reeling from an absence that used to grate on them in life with its overbearing presence. In an attempt to reestablish her individualism, Abby takes the dog-whom she calls by her previous, deceased dog’s name-for a walk, with tragic consequences. The fate of the house is interwoven with the family’s fate, and with all her kids back home, Abby feels the precariousness of their individual lives despite having wanted everyone under one roof. As the family unit crumbles, so too does the house that Red has previously cared for like his own child. Meanwhile, Nora and Abby silently struggle for the role of matriarch, while everyone suffers from Red’s refusal to wear his hearing aids. When Stem moves into the family house with his wife, Nora, and their three young boys, Denny, annoyed at not being asked, returns home as well.
When Abby begins exhibiting signs of dementia and Red’s hearing woes increase, the children initiate an unintentional tug-of-war between various family members. Daughters Amanda and Jeannie-along with their brother Stem, and later Denny-wrestle with how to extricate their parents from the house on Bouton Road that has served as the family’s heart and soul for generations. When Abby and Red, both in their 70s, begin exhibiting signs of old age, their children must decide their fate. Abby and Red, and their other children to a lesser extent, wonder when Denny might grace the family again with his presence.
The Whitshanks tout closeness as an endearing family trait, along with patience, but the opening pages undermine both these “virtues.” When Abby and Red Whitshanks’ estranged son, Denny, calls them one night and proclaims that he’s gay, Red’s annoyance with his contrarian son sets the stage for the rest of the narrative.
A Spool of Blue Thread chronicles the lives of the Whitshanks, a Baltimore family close-knit to the point of clannishness.
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