Liars and Saints

  Anne Tyler has made certain concessions. Perhaps her audience is dying; perhaps people don't read books anymore. We now see Tyler consenting to interviews; her discomfort is palpable. Also, her new book ("Three Days in June") is decorated with effusive quotations. Did we need all of these back in the era of "Ladder of Years"? People complained about Anita Brookner that her plots had become repetitive; her drippy heroes were oppressive as companions. But Brookner didn't care. She was writing for herself and not for "market trends." The same is true of Anne Tyler. There are things I will always remember about my wedding. The person who showed up late, a little awkwardness around someone's alcohol consumption, a couple of odd remarks. These are the tiny details that interest Anne Tyler. She isn't writing about Trump, Elon Musk, Caitlyn Jenner, Benjamin Netanyahu. But I do think that her writing is topical--because there will always be flawed...

  One of Anne Tyler's major themes is ambivalence (and no wonder I love her). Tyler's new novel, "French Braid," has a memorable protagonist, Mercy, who half-abandons her art career. But later, after the kids are grown, Mercy does something audacious; she buys herself a little painting studio, and she quietly moves all of her possessions into the studio. She never informs her husband--Robin--that she intends to make a new home. In fact, she continues to return to Robin, to prepare and freeze a lasagna, or to observe an important anniversary. Mercy is caught between two worlds--and not quite satisfied. It's easy enough to lose yourself within her story. Or consider her granddaughter, Candle. Candle is, in fact, "Kendall," but she has the nickname because, in early childhood, she confused a few of her vowel sounds. ("I am KAN-DELLLL!") Candle is delighted that her grandma calls her by her real name--and she even begins to insist that she herself ...

  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 dau...

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 w...

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...

It's trendy to dislike Anne Tyler's novels. Even Ron Charles--who praises almost everything in "The Washington Post"--had some reservations about the most recent Tyler novel, "Clock Dance." Bizarrely, Lorrie Moore makes some observations about Tyler in an essay on "The Wire." Moore notes all the prominent Baltimore artists who get shout-outs in "The Wire," then points out the omission of references to Tyler. Moore then speculates that the omission is a result of Tyler's work's refusal to change; Tyler isn't in "The Wire" because she hasn't "kept up with the times." All of this makes me think of a funny and astute essay Hilary Mantel wrote about Anita Brookner toward the end of Brookner's career. Brookner had fallen out of favor, in some circles, because she had written about too many gloomy protagonists. Enough already, people said. Write about someone who sticks to a Prozac regimen--someone who...