The first book in my Reading Anne Tyler in 2021 project and welcome to anyone who is reading along with me, catching up or finding this ages after. Please do share your thoughts in the comments at the bottom or add a link to your review on your blog or Goodreads. All the reviews I am alerted to will be added to the project page when I can, so do pop there to see what other people have thought, too.
My copy of this one was bought in April 2000 and read in May of that year (you can tell this is pre- me meeting my husband, as the gap between acquisition and reading gradually widened when I started seeing him to its current 12-13 months, where it has remained for many years now!). I recalled nothing of this book upon re-reading it.
It’s got a weird cover image of Edwardian ladies with parasols which left me confused until I was almost the whole way through the book; I still don’t really feel it’s representative of the book! It’s an American edition which I amassed when I was busy collecting her, having read my first one in 1997, but I’m not sure where I acquired it from now. Which edition did you read?
Anne Tyler – “If Morning Ever Comes”
(11 April 2000)
Although it is maybe a little patchy and uneven in places, this first novel is full of Anne Tyler’s later work, a sort of Overture (as indeed I remember Iris Murdoch’s “Under the Net” being when I read that as part of my re-read of her novels). It’s quiet, it features a quirky main character who has trouble fitting into the world, and most importantly centres on a family that doesn’t talk about anything:
All I’m trying to do is stop one more of those amazing damned things that go on in this family and everyone takes for granted, pretends things are still all right and the world’s still right-side up. The most amazing things go on in this family, the most amazing things, that no one else would allow, and this family just keeps on- (p. 190)
… at which point the speaker is, of course, cut off and silenced.
People do things almost by accident, in a dream, coming back from college for an unspecified amount of time, getting married, carrying on a probably inappropriate family tradition. Most of the actual action takes place off-camera, and I recall that being a common AT feature – even when a husband comes home to collect his errant wife, our point-of-view character takes himself off and has to rely on reportage the next day. Some pivotal scenes are described directly, but they’re a side-scene to the main event (I’m thinking of the bagpiper at the time of the father of the family’s death here). It’s an effective way, if a slightly odd way, of doing things, showing how families and communities absorb events, perhaps.
Ben Joe is one of our classic male AT characters, awkward, not great with the girls, liking things to be arranged. His mother seems cold and distanced and as if she doesn’t care what happens in her marriage, and the rather marvellous Gram livens things up with her odd cooking, age-old bickering rows with her daughter-in-law and hilarious one-upmanship over grandchildren that flourishes in one scene that’s also a touching portrayal of the grandparent/grandchild relationship. People lose relatives somewhat haphazardly and Iris Murdoch might say contingency is everywhere in accidental encounters and links. And the language reads pure Anne Tyler somehow – when Ben Joe is reading all the bits of the paper really early on, we get this passage, which I think would fit into any of her novels:
He yawned and then set to picking out a ring set, ending with a large, oddly shaped diamond and a wedding band that was fine except for a line of dots at each edge that bothered him. (p. 10)
I loved all the detail, the community that remembers far back and changes (though in a different location from other books) and accepts eccentric families, incursions of strangers and their different ways of speaking and being, the details of Ben Joe’s sisters’ personalities being shown up and maintained through their lives in how they do their hair or deal with standing up suddenly while holding a needle. It’s a very domestic book in some ways, placing importance on how a family exists in a house and how the members take that with them if they ever leave.
That weird cover picture comes from one passage where Ben Joe talks about imagining his family, further back in time than they actually are, waiting for him. I still don’t think it’s that representative, but there you go! I thoroughly enjoyed this quiet novel, reading with a mounting feeling of anxiety for Ben Joe’s studies and future that is only partly resolved. I would have liked to know more of the lives of the Black families from the train, but this was a first novel published when the author was 22 and very good in those circumstances.
Do let me know if you’ve read along, joined me for this one or any others at any time, or come to this later and have thoughts on it. All comments welcome at whatever time, no pressure! Do visit the project page to see how it’s all going!
Diane
Jan 10, 2021 @ 13:56:05
I love Anne Tyler, yet, this title and story does not ring a bell. I need to check back and see whether I’ve read it and forgotten it or otherwise, I’d like to read it soon. Glad I came across your review.
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Liz Dexter
Jan 10, 2021 @ 17:39:51
I think it might depend when you started reading her – it’s been reprinted now but I picked up this old 1980s copy in 2000. It is pretty obscure, but I think still worth reading and do let me know what you think of it if you manage to get hold of a copy! Also welcome to my blog!
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Wendy
Jan 10, 2021 @ 16:03:42
I used to read every single Anne Tyler book–I don’t know why I stopped. I loved her quirky characters, her everyman/woman stories. Finding the interesting in an everyday life. I may have to read some of the ones I missed!
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Liz Dexter
Jan 10, 2021 @ 17:40:56
That’s exactly why I like her! I did find she dipped a little five or six years ago and it will be interesting to find out whether I think better of those few stories when I come to them this time around. I do hope you can join me to fill in those gaps!
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heavenali
Jan 10, 2021 @ 19:08:22
I finished my reading of this, and I hope to get my review written and posted later this week. I really liked it, a really good first novel. I can’t get over that cover image though, it makes absolutely no sense.
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Liz Dexter
Jan 10, 2021 @ 19:18:46
The only sense it makes at all is that one paragraph when he mentions thinking of his family in that form, waiting for him. But there are so many other images in the book they could have used! Looking forward to your review and glad you liked it, too!
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Deborah Brooks
Jan 10, 2021 @ 20:57:49
I don’t know about this book but I love all of your suggestions!
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Liz Dexter
Jan 15, 2021 @ 16:51:08
Lots of her more recent books are readily available if you fancy trying one!
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wadholloway
Jan 11, 2021 @ 09:49:56
It’s a long time since I read Homesick Restaurant. I’m not sure I liked it but I don’t remember why. Anyway, I’ll borrow or two more in the next few months and add to your project.
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Liz Dexter
Jan 15, 2021 @ 16:51:37
Fabulous, it will be lovely to have you along – well, if you enjoy them! I hope you do!
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Jane
Jan 11, 2021 @ 16:54:45
I haven’t heard of this one, I wonder if it has a different cover now – they must have thought they were aiming it at the costume drama audience?
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Liz Dexter
Jan 15, 2021 @ 16:52:31
Yes, it’s been reissued in the edition they all seem to be in now. There is one single paragraph in the whole book where the 1960s hero describes his idea of his family being like this!
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Ste J
Jan 13, 2021 @ 12:08:17
This sounds interesting, as does your reading project. Sticking with one author is quite a feat, at least for me. I look forward to reading all about Tyler’s work and adding her to my list, maybe to read along for a bit as well.
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Liz Dexter
Jan 15, 2021 @ 16:53:20
It would be lovely to have you along – once the charity shops have been reopened she is always in there in some form! I have done single author challenges a lot before although never so many in one year!
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JacquiWine
Jan 13, 2021 @ 15:31:27
It’s always fascinating to revisit the work of a favourite author, tracing their development over the course of their career. This sounds like a solid first novel, complete with some of Tyler’s familiar character types and themes. A lovely start to your new reading project!
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Liz Dexter
Jan 15, 2021 @ 16:53:48
It is, and I was glad I enjoyed it, though a little shocked I remembered absolutely nothing about it!
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Nan
Jan 17, 2021 @ 18:36:22
A couple years ago I decided I wanted to read more of her work. I read this book and liked it a lot. I jotted down a few notes here – https://lettersfromahillfarm.blogspot.com/2019/01/january-2019-books.html
I went on to read one that you commented on!! https://lettersfromahillfarm.blogspot.com/2019/02/a-spool-of-blue-thread-by-anne-tyler.html
And that seems to be it for my year of AT! I have read some others, but not all.
I look forward to more of your posts.
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Liz Dexter
Jan 18, 2021 @ 06:37:30
Thank you for your comment – it’s telling me you’ve not commented on my blog before even though we’ve certainly chatted over on yours And thank you for these, interesting to read I will add them to the project page.
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Ruth Hare
Jan 23, 2021 @ 11:38:43
Lovely review. I really enjoyed this novel and have just finished it. It took me a while to get going with it, but I enjoyed the quietness of it very much. I think that key events happening off stage as it were somehow adds to it. I found with this book as with other much later books it is what’s left unsaid that is so significant, with the reader filling in the gaps. I had to check the date of this, as I was a little confused initially by the use of language for the black people in the book. I was reminded of my dad reading huckleberry Finn to me when I was a child and being told that the language used about Jim was not acceptable now. He said this because we were children and also because (in my opinion) it’s such a good exciting book that one might think the language is acceptable too. As an adult who was brought up with my parents values I of course know the language used here was considered acceptable at the time but not anymore. I wonder if other readers would have the same view? One would hope so.
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Liz Dexter
Jan 24, 2021 @ 11:57:09
The use of the word “Negro” gave me pause, too – it’s written and set in the 1960s and that would have been the polite term someone like this family would use, I suppose. I had a Look Inside at the most modern edition and it’s still there so I’m assuming it wasn’t actually offensive enough to change – and the portrayal of the people themselves is at least nuanced and positive, isn’t it.
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Ruth Hare
Jan 24, 2021 @ 18:11:06
Yes I agree. I spend most of my working life helping social work students to think about the language they use and so that word particularly resonated with me. I agree that her characterisation is good, as it always is.
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Liz Dexter
Jan 25, 2021 @ 08:43:11
Yes, I do the same with my editing clients so it clanged a big bell and I messaged Ali to see if it was in her more modern edition of the book!
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Lisbeth Ekelöf
Feb 08, 2021 @ 10:26:52
Great review. I managed to read both books for January. She is such a wonderful author and brings you into her stories with her beautiful prose. I have a post for both books here: https://thecontentreader.blogspot.com/2021/02/2-x-anne-tyler.html
I have already read the first book for February. She is amazing in visualising and make ordinary, or maybe actually not that ordinary(!), characters come to live and bring them into your own life.
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Liz Dexter
Feb 08, 2021 @ 11:04:46
Thank you for sharing your double review and I’ve added it to the project page. I have read A Slipping Down LIfe too, review to come on Wednesday, and yes, she celebrates the less attractive and odd characters and really gets into their heads, which I love.
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Marking Time | The Australian Legend
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