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From the incomparable Anne Tyler, a rich and compelling novel of gorgeous scope and depth, spanning three generations, about a mismatched marriage - and its consequences.
Michael and Pauline seemed like the perfect couple - young, good-looking, made for each other. The moment she walked into his mother's grocery store in the Polish quarter of Baltimore, he was smitten. And in the heat of World War II fervour, they marry in haste.
Pauline, impulsive, volatile, impractical, tumbles hit-or-miss through life; Michael, plodding, cautious, and judgmental, proceeds deliberately. In time their foolish quarrels take their toll. A seventeen-year-old daughter disappears, and some years later this fractious pair is forced to pick up pieces from Haight Ashbury, and start being parents all over again to a small boy called Pagan. Caught in what feels like a practice marriage but which couldn't be more real, they seem to be tearing each other apart - until someone, unexpectedly, shockingly, kicks over the traces.
From the sound of the cash register in the old grocery to the counterculture jargon of the sixties, from the miniskirts to the multilayers of later years, Anne Tyler captures the evocative nuances of everyday life during these decades with telling precision and sly humour. Throughout, as each of the competing voices bears witness, we are drawn ever more deeply into the entanglements and ambivalence of family life. In this achingly poignant and unforgettable novel, Tyler turns marriage inside out, to show us how attitudes trickle down the generations and marriage moulds its partners,
for better or for worse...
Michael and Pauline seemed like the perfect couple - young, good-looking, made for each other. The moment she walked into his mother's grocery store in the Polish quarter of Baltimore, he was smitten. And in the heat of World War II fervour, they marry in haste.
Pauline, impulsive, volatile, impractical, tumbles hit-or-miss through life; Michael, plodding, cautious, and judgmental, proceeds deliberately. In time their foolish quarrels take their toll. A seventeen-year-old daughter disappears, and some years later this fractious pair is forced to pick up pieces from Haight Ashbury, and start being parents all over again to a small boy called Pagan. Caught in what feels like a practice marriage but which couldn't be more real, they seem to be tearing each other apart - until someone, unexpectedly, shockingly, kicks over the traces.
From the sound of the cash register in the old grocery to the counterculture jargon of the sixties, from the miniskirts to the multilayers of later years, Anne Tyler captures the evocative nuances of everyday life during these decades with telling precision and sly humour. Throughout, as each of the competing voices bears witness, we are drawn ever more deeply into the entanglements and ambivalence of family life. In this achingly poignant and unforgettable novel, Tyler turns marriage inside out, to show us how attitudes trickle down the generations and marriage moulds its partners,
for better or for worse...