“The trouble with dying,” a mother says in Anne Tyler’s new novel, “is that you don’t get to see how everything turns out. You won’t know the ending.” “But, Mom,” replies her daughter, “there is no ...

Anne Tyler’s “A Spool of Blue Thread,” the 20th novel by the Pultizer Prize-winning author, is loaded with ideas and potentially fascinating storylines that are extended throughout the book but ...

A lopsided pottery house sits on a high shelf in Anne Tyler’s writing room. The handicraft belonged to the novelist’s mother, who made it in her retirement home as her mind was starting to fade. Ms.