The Widower's Tale, by Julia Glass

The widower Percy Darling is at the center of Julia Glass's fine fourth novel, which opens just as the barn on Percy's property, which has stood empty since his wife's accidental drowning more than 20 years ago, is about to become the home of the Elves and Fairies preschool in his suburban Boston community. The transformation of the barn marks the beginning of an awakening for the recently retired librarian. He falls in love with a younger woman named Sarah, agrees to take part in a house tour (something that would have anathema to him just months before), and becomes more engaged with his daughters, the overachieving Trudy and the drastically underachieving Clover. But the story is, of course, not as light as this synopsis might suggest--Sarah is diagnosed with breast cancer, Clover has left her children and husband and is miserable, the house tour leads to unwanted visitors and buyers, and grandson Robert is in deep trouble.

Robert, a premed student at Harvard, gets sucked into a campaign of environmental terrorism by his mysterious and charismatic roommate Turo. We also learn the "tales" of Celestino, an immigrant whose story has hidden complexities that those who see him tending gardens in Matlock would never guess, and Ira, who has come to teach at Elves and Fairies after being forced out at the last school where he taught when parents learned he was gay. Intertwined with the stories of these four central characters are a variety of contemporary issues--immigration law, environmental problems, loss of the historical village's character, the blindness of the privileged to the poverty in their midst. But as the story reaches its climax, what matters are the connections among people.

Glass is a master of weaving together the stories of characters whose stories begin tangentially and end up as elements of a beautifully designed tapestry. She does a superb job of drawing the four main characters, an interesting achievement given that they are all male. While not as complex (or dark) as Three Junes, The Widower's Tale is a rewarding read.

Favorite passages:

Some might have referred to Vince, Buck, and Calvin as "ordinary fellows" or "salt of the earth." Such terms are merely code for men who've led lives in which boyhood dreams become a luxury, a whim, before boyhood even comes to an end.

It was straightforward, then, the path I followed; I see it as proof of a happy childhood. Take that, Dr. Freud (Philip Larkin, too).

(Larkin's poem about how your parents ruin you is one of my son's favorites, so I couldn't resist the latter quote!)