Anne Tyler has concocted a beautiful metaphor about just what a family is: The French Braid. The explanation comes late in the book, but it is so on target. This is a funny and a poignant novel, just what is expected in a Tyler work.
Readers meet the Garretts, and their story starts
unfolding in the summer of 1959. No surprises that they live in Baltimore, but as
the children grow up, they branch out to other parts of the Northeast.
The parents Robin and Mercy have similar but diverging
goals in life. Robin wants a home; Mercy wants a second life after raising her
family. Daughters Alice and Lily are complete opposites in personalities. Son
David wants to distance himself from family for reasons the parents and sisters
do not understand.
As life goes on through
the decades, the shape of the Garrett family changes, grows, backs up, starts
anew. Parents grow old, marriages come and go, children are added to the
family, and they grow up as well.
The novel has it all:
humor, heartache, success, failure…an imitation of life for sure. It has been
called “classic Anne Tyler,” while I would call it Anne Tyler at her very best.
Anne Tyler won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 with the
novel Breathing Lesson. Her books, always witty and engaging, never disappoint.
My review will be posted on Goodreads starting December
22, 2021.
I would like to thank Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
and NetGalley for providing me with an
ARC in return for an objective review.
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