Abide With Me

Last week, I finished Abide With Me, by Elizabeth Strout in audio book format.

Half or more of the books I finish each year are audio books, because I commute about 45 minutes each way to work. Audio books have kept me sane over the years - I encounter less road rage during a good story and I feel like I'm multi-tasking in the car. That being said, sometimes it stresses me out getting an overly long audio book, because it seems never-ending. For example, I've been wanting to read Atlas Shrugged for years, and the fact that it is 42 CDs really puts me off.

Abide With Me was 8 CDs and 10 hours, which is almost bordering on too long for me, but it was an easy listen. The characters were easy to remember, the narration wasn't terrible (read by Bernadette Dunne), and it got me out of my typical comfort reading zone, which is murder mysteries.

I picked this book because I had just finished Olive Kitteridge for my book club, which got a Pulitzer, so I figured the author probably had written some decent stuff before Olive, too. The story is sad, but in a belieavable way. It's about a preacher, Tyler Caskey, who is cherished in his community, but after losing his beloved wife, who never really fit into the typical preacher's wife mold, he starts to lose his connection with the community and the church congregation. The book then backtracks, which really worked to explain why certain things occurred and why people had the relationships they do.

Abide With Me was realistic, in terms of the financial concerns preachers can have, which you wouldn't really think about. What if the preacher, or his wife, doesn't like the house which is given to them? What if the preacher's wife likes to shop, and just won't deal with a budget? What does a preacher do when he can't afford daycare? And the cattiness and gossip that occurs in a small town in a very efficient way can turn on a favorite member of the town very quickly.

By the time I got to the last CD I was starting to wonder how Abide With Me could possibly become positive and end on a good note, because it gets dreadfully sad. And while it's not a happy-go-lucky ending, it really shouldn't be, and it left me feeling satisfied anyway.

Favorite quote:
"He would rather melt in an atomic blast than be stuck in an underground shelter with his wife."