Can you believe that I have never read anything by Anne Tyler before? I've heard such great things about her novels but for some strange reason never felt at all drawn to pick one up. In the end I did get hold of this one, in a charity shop I think, but still did not make any attempt to actually read it until last week. I'm not sure what made me start, but once I did, I was absolutely enthralled. Just in case I am not the last person in the universe to have read it, I will tell you that it is the story of Barnaby Gaitlin, who is also the narrator. Barnaby, an attractive young man just about to turn thirty, is the younger son of a wealthy and successful middle-class family in Baltimore. Unlike his older brother, who is quite happy to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, Barnaby has had a chequered teenage, including a good deal of housebreaking (although, unlike his fellow housebreakers, he spent his illicit time in other people's houses looking at their family photos and reading their diaries). After a period in a reform school and a failed marriage, he has settled down to the extent of finding himself a steady job working for a company called Rent-a-Back, which undertakes heavy work for those who are too old and infirm to do it themselves. Periodically he visits his daughter Opal, who lives with her snooty mother and seems to be rather disaffected and confused about his role in her life. But a chance meeting, in rather bizarre circumstances, with the rather older though not unattractive Sophia leads his life in several unforeseen and unsettling directions. This is indeed a most delightful and charming book. It is hard to convey just how beautifully it is written. There is much wonderful humour and unexpected descriptions. On his first meeting with Sophia's aunt, he remarks that as the old lady came to the door, "Over her forearm she carried a Yorkshire terrier, neatly folded like a waiter's napkin". In another old lady's house, he and his team-mate Martine erect an ancient Christmas tree on New Years Eve, for the overnight visit of her grandchildren. The decorations are as decrepit as the tree, including a snowflake "pancake-sized, slightly crumpled, snipped from giftwrap so old that the Santas were smoking cigarettes.". But above all the great joy of this novel is Barnaby, good-hearted, quick-minded, cynical, chronically unable to stop himself messing his life up every time it appears to be on the up and up. There is so much here to enjoy, and I found myself thinking about it long after I had finished reading it.
Sorry about the silence, by the way -- I've been away from home for a week and won't be back there until Thursday.
