Skip to main content

Anne Tyler

When people mock Anne Tyler as too safe, too dated, it's useful to point to "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant." This is her masterpiece, as she herself would admit. It's about a woman, Pearl, who becomes embittered when her awful husband abandons the family. Overwhelmed by stress, Pearl isn't an ideal mother. Her children, Jenny, Cody, and Ezra, are frightened of her. Here's Jenny, thinking about her mom:

Mother was a dangerous person--hot breathed and full of rage and unpredictable. The dry, straw texture of her lashes could seem the result of some conflagration, and her pale hair could crackle electrically from its bun and her eyes could get small as hatpins. Which of her children had not felt her stinging slap, with the claw-encased pearl in her engagement ring that could bloody a lip at one flick? Jenny had seen her hurl Cody down a flight of stairs. She'd seen Ezra ducking, elbows raised, warding off an attack. She herself, more than once, had been slammed against a wall, been called "serpent," "cockroach," "hideous little sniveling guttersnipe." But here Pearl sat, decorously inquiring about another girl's weight problem. Jenny had a faint, tremulous hope that times had changed...But she never felt entirely secure, and at night, Jenny went off to bed and dreamed what she had always dreamed: her mother laughed a witch's shrieking laugh; dragged Jenny out of hiding as the Nazis tramped up the stairs; accused her of sins and crimes that had never crossed Jenny's mind. Her mother told her, in an informative and considerate tone of voice, that she was raising Jenny to eat her.

*A person can be several things. Pearl kisses her daughter good night, regularly, but also, on occasion, uses physical violence. It's a testament to Tyler's ability that you don't write off Pearl as a two-D villain; you can feel for her, just as you feel for Jenny, in this novel.

*Tyler uses fairy-tale imagery. Skipping through this paragraph is a Grimm Brothers sensibility. The "hot breath" evokes thoughts of dragons, the "claw-encased pearl" seems like something from "Sleeping Beauty," the witch's shrieking could be borrowed from "Snow White," and of course the idea of eating children transports us to "Hansel and Gretel." Do you want to know how to write, in a vivid, dramatic way, about some standard domestic conflicts? *This* is how you do it.

*One other note about Tyler's use of images. "Pale hair crackling electrically from its bun" and "eyes as small as hatpins": This is the kind of hyperbole with which a terrified child *would indeed* view her mother (who is just a person, and who can be meek in another scenarios). Tyler is showing us, rather than telling about, a little girl's confused inner world.

Jenny would naturally, also, fix her attention on the "claw-encased pearl" from her mother's engagement: Mrs. Tull never removed the ring, which must now be a source of pain for her, and which has become, weirdly, a way for her to inflict pain on others.

This novel is all about how we drag our pain into the family arena--how we often can't lash out at the person who hurts us, and so we dump our anger on someone powerless sleeping next door. It's also about how we must wrestle with questions about whether or not to forgive, and *how* to forgive. It's a novel that has aged well, and a novel that refuses to give us easy answers. I look forward to following flawed, relatable Jenny on further adventures...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel  Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's  Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...

Joshie

  When I was growing up, a class birthday involved Hostess cupcakes. Often, the cupcakes would come in a shoebox, so you could taste a leathery residue (during the party). Times change. You can't bring a treat into a public school, in 2024, because heaven knows what kind of allergies might lurk, in unseen corners, in the classroom. But Joshua's teacher will allow: a dance party, a pajama day, or a guest reader. I chose to bring a story for Joshua's birthday (observed), but I didn't think through the role that anxiety might play in this interaction. We talk, in this house, quite a bit about anxiety; one game-changer, for J, has been a daily list of activities, so that he knows exactly what to expect. He gets a look of profound satisfaction when he sees the agenda; it doesn't really matter what the specific events happen to be. It's just about knowing, "I can anticipate X, Y, and Z." Joshua struggled with his celebration. He wore his nervousness on his f...

Josh at Five

 Joshie's project is "flexibility"; the goal is to see that a plan is just an idea, not a gospel, not a guarantee. This is difficult. Yesterday, we went to a restaurant--billed as "open," with unlocked doors--and the owner informed us of an "error in advertising." But Joshie couldn't accept the word "closed." He threw himself on the floor, then climbed on the furniture. I felt for the owner, until he nervously made a reference to "the glass windows." He imagined that my child might toss himself through a sealed window, like Mary Katherine Gallagher, or like Bruce Willis, in "Die Hard." Then--thank the Lord!--I was able to laugh. The thing that really has therapeutic value for Joshie is: a firetruck. If we are out in public, and he spots a parked truck, he wants to climb on each surface. He breathlessly alludes to the wheels, the door, the windows. If an actual fire station ("fire ocean," in Joshie's parla...