My third Anne Tyler in a row! And another winner.
How many people, I wonder, sometimes feel like just walking out of their lives and starting again somewhere else? And how many actually do it? Probably there are statistics somewhere that would tell you, and presumably many more think about it than actually do it. Delia, in this book, hardly thinks about it at all -- but she does do it, apparently on the spur of the moment. Disappearing from a family beach holiday dressed only in her swimming costume and her husband's beach robe, she simply hitches a ride with a talkative maintenance man and gets out of his van in a small town miles from home with no plans and no idea, really, what she is doing or going to do next. It is not that she is exactly unhappy at home, though she cannot be said to be exactly happy either -- she feels unappreciated by her doctor husband, is largely ignored by her teenage children, and has got involved in a rather unsatisfactory relationship with a newly separated man which she has not had to courage to consummate fully. But once she lands in this new environment, she starts to reinvent herself and to start a totally new life. She buys a plain, rather elegantly severe dress, rents a small and pleasingly bare room, and gets a job as a secretary. At first she barely allows herself to think at all. But gradually life starts to enfold her again. She makes new friends, gets a new job which entails looking after a separated man and his twelve-year-old son. Her family, completely bemused by what has happened, make occasional forays to see her or at least contact her by letter, though she hears nothing from her husband. Eventually she gets a letter inviting her to her daughter's wedding. Will she go? What will happen if she does? You must read this and find out.
Just as beautifully observed as the other two I have read, just as sweet, funny, sad and thought-provoking, this is another one I can't recommend highly enough. Anne Tyler writes so beautifully and so wittily -- I will just leave you with one moment that made me laugh. This is Delia's mother-in-law: "Instead of a purse she had one of those belt packs, glow-in-the dark chartreuse nylon, riding in front of her like some add-on pregnancy. It caused her to walk slightly swaybacked, though ordinarily her posture was perfect".
