I have read a number of Anne Tyler novels. I like the domesticness and ordinariness of them.
The blurb …
When the kids are grown and Mercy Garrett gradually moves herself out of the family home, everyone determines not to notice.
Over at her studio, she wants space and silence. She won’t allow any family clutter. Not even their cat, Desmond.
Yet it is a clutter of untidy moments that forms the Garretts’ family life over the decades, whether that’s a painstaking Easter lunch or giving a child a ride, a fateful train journey or an unexpected homecoming.
And it all begins in 1959, with a family holiday to a cabin by a lake. It’s the only one the Garretts will ever take, but its effects will ripple through the generations.
This is a family saga, but it has an interesting structure. At the start there is a couple and one of them finds it strange that the other one thinks she sees her cousin at the train station but can’t be sure. How is it possible to not recognize your cousin? We then get the life of the Garretts from different time periods and different perspectives.
I find it difficult to separate my thoughts about the novel from my thoughts about the characters. And I didn’t really like Mercy (and when she took the cat, Desmond, to the animal shelter and then threw out all of his belongings I wanted to cry). I wasn’t a fan of Robin either, although, to be fair, I did warm to them both by the end.
This is a novel about an American family – with all of the rivalries and every day pettiness, but also the connections.
A review.