It’s time for the first April read in my Anne Tyler 2021 project and a slim volume that I yet again didn’t remember. I must have bought this with birthday book tokens.
If you’re reading along with the project or just this one or whatever, please do share your thoughts in the comments at the bottom or add a link to your review on your blog or Goodreads, etc.. I’m adding links to these reviews plus all the reviews I am alerted to to the project page, so do pop there to see what other people have thought, too.
Anne Tyler – “Earthly Possessions”
(25 January 2004)
Although I didn’t believe in God, I could almost change my mind now and imagine one, for who else could play such a joke on me? The only place more closed-in than this house was a church. The only person odder than my mother was a hellfire preacher. I nearly laughed. (p. 84)
I’m definitely starting to see patterns in Tyler’s preoccupations and themes as I work my way through them – a very pleasing aspect of reading all of an author’s works in order. Here we have the tropes of multiple siblings, each with their oddity, the woman alone with her odd family, photographers, the runaway wife, the young and seemingly attractive but pretty useless drifter guy, and the small town (not Baltimore again), as well as the house full of STUFF.
Charlotte is on her way to leaving her husband (again) and in particular their great mass of joint family possessions, which seems to have a life of its own and just won’t go away, just getting added to by full-size and other furniture. But as she tries to get some money out, she is taken hostage by an inept bank robber and ends up going on a road trip with him (as you do). She narrates the novel’s current happenings and also her past life that has got her to this point, and it’s another finely observed narrative in which not much happens (even a roadtrip with a criminal turns out not to be that exciting) and repeatedly considers shucking off her earthly possessions and running more freely upon the earth.
It’s a short novel but a fun one and very readable. Do we agree with the ending? Well, it’s very Tyler-esque, at very least.
Adventures in reading, running and working from home 
Apr 10, 2021 @ 11:49:57
It was the ending I was expecting, having read Ladder of Years. I particularly liked that the title meant more than some of her title phrases seem to. (I think I have the wrong link for your post; I’ll go correct that in my review now.)
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Apr 10, 2021 @ 15:30:38
Yes, that is true about the title. I did really like this one, the road trip aspect and the linked themes with other books.
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Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler (1977) | Bookish Beck
Apr 10, 2021 @ 11:50:24
Apr 10, 2021 @ 12:58:58
Interesting, but not surprising, that you find themes and preoccupations developing in a chronological read. It’s often a most revealing way to read an author, although I’m not sure that it always has that effect with every author! For example, Elizabeth Taylor wrote quite different novels and although she had regular tropes, I’m not sure I would look for a chonological change in her work. And Woolf, of course, changed every book. However other authors I used to read more of, whose names actually escape me now, but who I read when bringing up children, tended to plough the same furrow a lot so I lost interest in them. It’s a difficult balance and it sounds to me as if Tyler found a comfortable point halfway between those poles!
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Apr 10, 2021 @ 15:32:05
She’s a good one as she does have these ideas and themes but seems to examine them from different angles and people’s perspectives. I don’t recall us finding a lot of development like that when we did E Taylor – I think she just sprang forth fully formed! Woolf did go from the more conventional to the experimental, I suppose …
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Apr 10, 2021 @ 14:36:05
I do love the idea of reading an author’s books in order of publication. This one sounds interesting to me. There is so much written and televised about people and their possessions, and it seems some of them are not even bought by the owners. I suppose this is a result of older parents moving or dying. Excellent review, as always.
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Apr 10, 2021 @ 15:33:21
This is what happens here – she lives in the house she grew up in and he moves most of his parents’ furniture into it! I have a fair bit of furniture that has followed me from childhood or been picked up later, but have resisted ending up with double layers of stuff around rooms … And thank you. Is this one you’ve read of hers?
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Apr 11, 2021 @ 18:53:38
No
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Apr 10, 2021 @ 16:23:49
Apr 10, 2021 @ 18:07:33
STUFF is such a revealing element of building character. One of the things I think of often, in terms of Tyler’s work, is the way that the cupboards were organized in The Accidental Tourist. I even think of this sometimes, when I am putting away the household’s groceries (when I trouble to have the labels aligned *grins* and when I don’t). I don’t think I’ve read this one of hers, but the way you’ve described the common bits makes me feel at home with it, all the same.
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Apr 12, 2021 @ 12:40:55
Ha – that’s the thing I remember about that one, too, and I think of it when I do that!
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Apr 11, 2021 @ 07:15:51
I’ve just finished this and really enjoyed it. I sometimes find that when reading an Anne Tyler book I’m waiting for it to end, and then I’m taken by surprise when it does. I liked the complexity of the characters and that it starts with a bang. I also enjoyed the story of her past life, which took you away from the current action, but clearly helped to build and develop the main character. I do agree that there are common themes, but very much enjoy how different they all are.
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Apr 12, 2021 @ 12:41:38
Yes, she seems to be examining her preoccupations from lots of different angles, which is so interesting.
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Apr 11, 2021 @ 15:11:56
I liked this one a lot, but the ending, although expected, is not what I would have wanted for Charlotte.
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Apr 12, 2021 @ 12:42:02
I know what you mean! But a very Anne Tyler ending …
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Apr 11, 2021 @ 20:01:07
I think I might have read this one, but to be honest I really can’t remember it. I’m not surprised you’re seeing common themes in Anne Tyler’s novel, I think she does have a preoccupation with the complex nature of families and she explores them well.
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Apr 12, 2021 @ 12:42:34
Yes, and big, peculiar families, too. This is definitely a good one and I’m glad I re-read it.
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Apr 12, 2021 @ 17:30:23
I’ve never read any Anne Tyler books. Something about the descriptions….they’re always just vague enough that I shrug and don’t add them to the TBR. I’m glad you’re enjoying her work, though, and I know plenty of folks who read all her stuff.
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Apr 13, 2021 @ 11:42:15
They are good but pretty quiet and domestic, I suppose, not sure if they fit with the other stuff you read though I always encourage people to try her! Maybe you’ll read a review that piques your interest enough to give her a go as I work my way through them!
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Apr 14, 2021 @ 00:24:42
I’ll keep my eyes peeled 🙂
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Apr 19, 2021 @ 16:27:04
I have started this one. Fascinating already from chapter one.
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Apr 19, 2021 @ 16:42:45
Yes, it certainly starts off in a lively way, doesn’t it!
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Apr 20, 2021 @ 13:38:33
Aha! For some reason this is the Anne Tyler book I remember the most- with the layers of furniture in their house, right? I’m not sure why this one stands out to me- maybe it was the first one I ever read. Anyway, it’s a good one! I still haven’t picked one to re-read- maybe this will be it.
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Apr 20, 2021 @ 13:49:27
Yes, that’s the one, and they resist being got rid of! It’s a good one indeed, and a nice short one to re-read. And you managed to get your comment though – hooray!
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Apr 28, 2021 @ 13:07:08
A nice story indeed. One of my favourites I think. I think Charlotte, like Elizabeth in The Clock Winder are two fascinating characters. Like you say, it is so interesting to read all, or many, of a writer’s novels. I think she is a master in characterisation, family relations and their interactions. Quite interesting.
My review is here: https://thecontentreader.blogspot.com/2021/04/earthly-possessions-by-anne-tyler.html
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Apr 28, 2021 @ 14:21:34
Thank you for alerting me to your review – it hasn’t appeared in my Feedly reader yet! I’ve added it to the project page. And yes, I love Charlotte, too. It’s great reading them all in order, isn’t it – I’m getting a lot out of it!
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Jun 27, 2022 @ 09:23:39
I didn’t predict the ending but I think that was pretty much the only option for Tyler and, as you say, it is Tyleresque that she walks away. I enjoyed the fast pace of this one, aided by the more constant switch from one narrative thread to the other; and both the hold-up and road trip were a welcome change. The suffocating accumulation of possessions seems to be a building theme, dating back to “Celestial Navigation” and is part of that ongoing dissection of discontented marriages. It’s hard to criticise such an accomplished writer as Tyler, but I think she missed an opportunity to explore the relationship between Charlotte and Jake more deeply; she just tends to assume the reader knows that this is not a conventional hostage situation.
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Jun 29, 2022 @ 09:03:21
Yes, the suffocating possessions, usually belonging to ancestors a few generations back and down to the present day, is a constant preoccupation with Tyler, isn’t it, alongside the crumbling houses they live in that are almost impossible to keep going. And yes, I agree about Charlotte and Jake, but it’s one of those lightly written random relationships she does so well (I’m thinking of some landlord / renter ones in running-away books).
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