The Gift of Fiction

One of America's greatest novelists, Anne Tyler, will have a new novel out this season. The novel is "French Braid," and it will address COVID head-on.

To get ready, I picked up "Back When We Were Grownups," about a widow in her fifties who becomes convinced she is living the wrong life. The widow--Rebecca--is a quiet, scholarly person who has found herself surrounded by noise. She has inherited an "events planning" business, but really she thinks she should be in a library, writing a dissertation about Robert E. Lee.

Rebecca runs a pseudo-mansion called "The Open Arms," and she buzzes through various graduations, birthday parties, and retirement parties, just ensuring that the conversation flows. She is a sort of cheerful bully. When the baker complains that her cake is ruined, Rebecca shoves some strawberries on top of the deformed half and says, "Nonsense!" When a mom calls to cancel the graduation party of her flunking-out daughter, Rebecca says, "You still want to celebrate your daughter, right? A little party might just give her the push she needs!"

While acting as a capable stepmother, grandmother, and businessperson, Rebecca also feels deep sadness; she is continually asking herself what might have happened if she had remained childless and pursued her academic career. The tension in her head and heart is beautifully described--and Tyler seems to "hit on" something universal here.

I thought this novel was a joy to read--oddly enough--even as it "records some blue notes." (Tyler wrote the novel as she mourned the loss of her husband.) It's slightly uncool to love Tyler--who won a Pulitzer in the eighties, then had the audacity to stick around--but I think there may be a "backlash to the backlash." I think Tyler may become chic once again. Two of her most recent works came close to winning the Booker Prize.

I can't wait for "French Braid."

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