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       #Post#: 3225--------------------------------------------------
       Elizabeth Strout, ABIDE WITH ME  (2019)
       By: agate Date: March 26, 2021, 12:36 am
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       Elizabeth Strout, ABIDE WITH ME (2019)
       It is rare to come across a book about a member of the clergy
       that does not disclose the author's religious stance, but this
       may be one such book. At its center is a Congregationalist
       minister, Tyler Caskey, who has had the bad luck to have married
       an enchanting woman who was perhaps too headstrong and
       opinionated to have been the best choice for the spiritual
       leader of a small Maine town's flock. Then the wife died,
       leaving him with two young daughters. The younger child is
       chiefly in the care of Tyler's mother, and Catherine, who is 5,
       is beginning to present some worrisome problems in her
       kindergarten.
       Or at least they are worrisome problems in the eyes of the
       kindergarten teacher, the school psychologist, and the school
       principal--the three of whom summon Tyler to a conference at one
       point, and the scene is one of the best in the book in its
       gentle parody of a particular type of pseudo-psychology that was
       being promoted at the time (1959).
       The character of Tyler is a bit of a puzzle. In many ways he is
       the quintessential Protestant clergyman--perhaps too trusting
       and naive for this world, overly scholarly, but well schooled
       apparently in the art  of saying tactful, soothing things to the
       people he deals with.
       I wonder at the dénouement, though. After Tyler has stood in
       front of his congregation, unable to deliver his sermon and with
       tears streaming down his face, we are asked to believe that he
       will find comfort in the response and care shown for him by some
       of the church members and be reabsorbed into their community,
       just after a vicious campaign of gossip has been waged against
       him.
       I'm not sure that the author has made this remarkable
       turn-around entirely believable, but the story is well told and
       absorbing, and the dialogue between Tyler and Catherine
       sometimes poses difficult questions about the God whose Word
       Tyler is preaching.
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