Anne Tyler Message Board 1/1/2012
Talk about the novels, new and used books that
Tyler has written!
Author Tyler's Book
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A Ladder of Years
A Ladder of Years is the story of a housewife who walks out on her family one day. She hitches a ride and ends up in this small town where she lives starkly in a boarding house and works as a secretary for minimum wage. This is a huge switch from the sprawling home of a doctor's wife, but she revels in the simplicity of this new life. No longer Mrs. Grinstead, she's now Miss Grinstead. She transforms from extrovert to introvert and back again over the co... A Patchwork Planet
Barnaby Gaitlin at 30 years old feels aimless and lacking a purpose and direction in his life. He has worked for 11 years for the "Rent-A-Back" company that provides services to mostly elderly people that have trouble doing heavy tasks at home. Barnaby committed a string of robberies as an adolescent, but avoided jail time because his affluent parents paid off the neighbors he stole from and sent him to a private "reform" school.
It is a Gaitlin f... A Slipping-Down Life
This story is about a girl who becomes obsessed with a budding rock musician who want to make it big, but when his career does not take of and the two are forced to settle down, she becomes aware of his true nature and intentions which are not in her best interest. Evie Decker is an overweight and lonely teenager who becomes obsessed with an up coming rock star but realizes there is more to people once you get to know them while solving her own issues. ... Average Waves in Unprotected Waters
This is the story of a woman on her deathbed and her thoughts about her life and how she has raised her children in the absence of their father, whether it damaged them and their perspectives on their childhood to find some closure when they have families of their own. Pearl Tull is a very hard working but emotionally distant woman and this is evident in the way that she reflects about the way she raises her children and their perspectives about the way...
Tyler booklist
Back When We Were Grownups
Knopf, May 2001, 25.00, 274 pp.
ISBN: 0375412530
Rebecca “Beck” (as in beck and call) Davitch wonders about choices. Now fifty-three, she thinks back over three decades to when she selected the older Joe and his three daughters over her college beau. One year later, Beck and Joe added a fourth child to the mix. However, five years after that, Joe died in a car accident, leaving Beck to raise four daughters, care for other in-laws, and run ... Breathing Lessons
The main character, Maggie Moran, a middle-aged housewife and her husband, Ira, are planning to travel to a small town some 90 miles away from their home to attend to a funeral.
Upon leaving, Maggie hears a caller on a radio show talking about marriage. She thinks she recognizes the voice of her estranged daughter in law, Fiona. Maggie's son, Jessie, divorced Fiona shortly after their baby girl, Leroy, was born. They actually had a shotgun wedding, bec... Ladder of Years
This is the story of a housewife who feels invisible and taken for granted by her family. On the spur of the moment, during a beach vacation, she decides to just walk away from it all and set up a new life in a small town. She embarks on a voyage of self-discovery, then has to deal with the consequences of her actions when she comes in contact with her husband and children again. A wonderful novel about finding and centering yourself no matter what th... The Accidental Tourist
Macon Leary writes guidebooks, but he has never visited the places he writes about. He does phone interviews and writes sterile reviews of hotel rooms, restaurants and scenery he has never seen. This is a metaphor, obviously, for how Macon lives his life. He is an armchair quarterback, so to speak.
The book opens as Macon and his wife Sarah are on the brink of disaster in their marriage. Their young son has been killed in a freakish way (shot in a fas...
