Julia Glass, The Widower’s Tale
Featured Book
A strong, traditional family story with charged generational shifts
Familial bonds strengthen and stretch in this expansive character study from the National Book Award-winning Julia Glass (Three Junes). It opens on the Massachusetts property of Percy Darling, 70, as he watches an old barn, occupied by personal ghosts, given new life as a preschool — the charmingly named Elves & Fairies. Still focused on his wife’s untimely death 30 years earlier and mired in routine, Percy feels like “a fixed point in the landscape … the trains passing me by.” That is, until he meets Sarah, a young single mother with a child in the school. As she fills him with life, he pushes to rescue her in a way he couldn’t save his wife. Some might call Percy a misanthrope, but he shows compassion for his two daughters, Clover, troubled by an impending divorce (living for years as if someone had “locked her up in a tower,”) and Trudy, a successful and widely-admired physician.
Elsewhere, Ira, a gay teacher, starts fresh at Elves & Fairies after being unfairly terminated at another school. His relationship with Anthony, an attorney, is a chatty highlight of the book. Glass’s tender story occasionally creaks with earnestness, but she flashes an unsparing eye on advisory board politics, same-sex marriage, gentrification and activism. Narrated by Mark Bramhall with a delicate brogue, Glass’s tale is a strong, traditional family story with charged generational shifts.
