15. The Widower's Tale - Julia Glass

Audio read by Mark Bramhall

Ebook through the library (also read the hard copy, back and forth...)

Publishing Info: Pantheon Books, 2010

Pgs.402 pages

Written for adults

Finished: April 21, 2013

Genre: CRF

Goodreads Rating:  3.63 

My Rating: 5 (I ended up loving it)

Setting: Contemporary just-outside-Boston/ suburbs (Cambridge, Boston, just out Rt. 2 from the city, up the coast a little toward Ipswich & Gloucester...)

1^st sentence/s: " 'Why Thank you.  I'm getting in shape to die.'  Those were the first words I spoke aloud on the final Thursday in August of last summer: Thursday, I recall for certain, because it was the day on which I read in our weekly town paper about the first of what I would so blithely come to call the Crusades; the end of the month  I can also say for certain, because Elves & Fairies was scheduled, that very evening, to fling open its brand-new, gloriously purple doors --- formerly the entrance to my beloved barn --- and usher in another flight of tiny perfect children, along with their preened and privileged parents."

My comments: I hated for this book to end as I had become really involved with many of the characters. And there are lots of characters, but it wasn't difficult to keep them straight. Julia Glass' gift for characterization (and beautiful writing) is just splendid. The curmudgeony protagonist is by far the most wonderful voice; humorous, wry, sarcastic, c::ever. His voice dominates the story, but there are three others that we hear; his beloved grandson Robert (a premed student at Harvard), Guatemalan immigrant Celestino (an undocumented gardener/day worker), and preschool teacher Ira (whose gay relationship with a divorce lawyer is interestingly woven into the story). I listened to much (though not all) of this, and the aristocratic lilt that the reader gave to Percy's voice put me off at first. However, as I got to know Percy, it didn't matter. The other three voices were not in this accent, and after awhile I liked the way I could tell the speaker by the way it was read. True, all sorts of socially conscious themes were introduced, but that didn't bother me at all, the story was relevant and interesting. So was the setting, so close to the places that I grew up and still love - the Boston area. I could picture the whole book clearly. Great writing, great story-telling.

Goodreads Review: In a historic farmhouse outside Boston, seventy-year-old Percy Darling is settling happily into retirement: reading novels, watching old movies, and swimming naked in his pond. His routines are disrupted, however, when he is persuaded to let a locally beloved preschool take over his barn. As Percy sees his rural refuge overrun by children, parents, and teachers, he must reexamine the solitary life he has made in the three decades since the sudden death of his wife. No longer can he remain aloof from his community, his two grown daughters, or, to his shock, the precarious joy of falling in love.

One relationship Percy treasures is the bond with his oldest grandchild, Robert, a premed student at Harvard. Robert has long assumed he will follow in the footsteps of his mother, a prominent physician, but he begins to question his ambitions when confronted by a charismatic roommate who preaches—and begins to practice—an extreme form of ecological activism, targeting Boston’s most affluent suburbs.

Meanwhile, two other men become fatefully involved with Percy and Robert: Ira, a gay teacher at the preschool, and Celestino, a Guatemalan gardener who works for Percy’s neighbor, each one striving to overcome a sense of personal exile. Choices made by all four men, as well as by the women around them, collide forcefully on one lovely spring evening, upending everyone’s lives, but none more radically than Percy’s.

With equal parts affection and satire, Julia Glass spins a captivating tale about the loyalties, rivalries, and secrets of a very particular family. Yet again, she plumbs the human heart brilliantly, dramatically, and movingly.