Book Review: Anne Tyler

You have to wonder what goes through the mind of a man like Micah Mortimer. He lives alone; he keeps to himself; his routine is etched in stone. At seven fifteen every morning you see him set out on his run. Along about ten or ten thirty he slaps the magnetic TECH HERMIT sign onto the roof of his Kia. The times he leaves on his calls will vary, but not a day seems to go by without several clients requiring his services. Afternoons he can be spotted working around the apartment building; he moonlights as the super. He’ll be sweeping the walk or shaking out the mat or conferring with a plumber. Monday nights, before trash day, he hauls the garbage bins to the alley; Wednesday nights, the recycling bins. At ten p.m. or so the three squinty windows behind the foundation plantings go dark. (His apartment is in the basement. It is probably not very cheery.)

This is the start of Anne Tyler's new novel, "Redhead by the Side of the Road." Micah Mortimer is wedded to routines; he does not think deeply about the people in his life, or about why he is here on the planet.

He has a girlfriend, Cass, who would like to move things along and discuss cohabitation. When Cass indirectly suggests this, Micah misses the clue, and a break-up ensues. At the same time, something apparently unrelated pops up. A lost young man visits Micah; he is the son of Micah's ex-girlfriend, and he wonders who his father might be. Though it's clearly not Micah....a strange pseudo-parent-child thing begins, and surprises ensue.

Anne Tyler has a particular trick I love: It's when the protagonist has a certain memory of formative events, and a voice from the past speaks up and challenges that memory. The false memory--more or less responsible for how the protagonist has lived his problematic life--now disappears. Having edited his own understanding of the world, the protagonist is able to do new things; his world expands, even if just by a little bit. Because Tyler is so perceptive and subtle, this magic trick is always moving. Literally always. I was even moved in "Noah's Compass," and that one isn't regarded as Tyler's strongest work.

A great gift of any hour you spend with Tyler is the details: Micah, a limited man, is enraged when his tenants fail to break down their boxes for recycling, and he vents his aggression by stomping on the boxes, and not carefully slitting through the corners first. (This is Micah's act of rebellion.) An obsessively attentive driver, Micah imagines there is a Traffic God, a benign spirit up above, and this spirit watches Micah's cautious traffic choices and voices his hushed approval. Also, Tyler enjoys cataloguing the contents of a messy kitchen: Jell-O packets next to popsicle sticks next to school projects next to one plastic earring, missing its partner.

A good writer--at least a good realist writer--should find wonder and beauty in quotidian life, and Ms. Tyler can still do this, after so many, many years.

I loved this book. I'm not sure there are many better ways to spend two or three hours right now, in this odd climate. I'm still thinking about Micah days after having put his story aside.

How to Host a Baby

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Liars and Saints

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