Books are good for much, even meeting new people
Friday morning I got on the trolley to get to work just like I do just about every morning. Sitting in one of the single seats by the back door, I looked up and noticed that a young woman standing near me was holding Anne Tyler’s new book, The Amateur Marriage. I have always loved Tyler’s books, but I was really kind of disappointed with the last one I read, which was A Patchwork Planet. So I did an unheard of thing. I asked a complete stranger on public transportation how she was liking the book she was reading. It took two “excuse me’s” to get her attention, but once the conversation was going, she was happy to talk. She said she was enjoying the book, but that it was the first one by Tyler that she had read.
We both got off the trolley at 33rd Street, and appeared to go different directions. Except that as I approached the corner across from my office building, I noticed that she was walking that direction as well. We both stopped at the light, and I turned to her and said, “I swear I’m not following you.” She looked at me with surprise and then a grin spread on her face. We both walked into the building, and on the stairs introduced our selves. It was a fun way to make a new acquaintance on a Friday morning.
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I’m hit or miss on Anne Tyler - some I love and some I’m “eh’ on - stopped keeping up w/ her some years ago - maybe I should catch up.
I think the one that’s my fave has a title like “dinner at homesick cafe”…
i recently read the amateur marriage. it was my first time reading anne tyler. if people say that her older novels are better, then i suppose that is good news. the amateur marriage was well-written, but i think i knew the story of the whole novel after reading 50 pages.
Her earlier books are definitely better than the later ones I’ve read. My favorites are Saint Maybe and The Accidental Tourist (although that’s a situation where I believe that the movie was better than the book).