I didn’t know Anne Tyler was still writing books. I had many hours to kill at an airport recently, and a bookshop had a buy-three-get-one-free thing going. I don’t have the time to read three books (plus that one-free book) – but when has that stopped me? So I looked up, I looked down. I found nothing. I got so desperate to find four books (stupid me, like I couldn’t just buy one, like I had to buy four just because of that stupid offer) that I started considering things like The Monk Who Sold His Rolls-Royce… or whatever. I have nothing against this type of book – or Robin Sharma. In fact, I think bald writers are completely awesome. (I may know of one myself.) But still… It’s not a book I’d buy, you know? And then, tucked away in a corner, I saw the new Anne Tyler. A Spool of Blue Thread. The placement of the book was as understated as her writing. I bought just that one book, and am now about 120 pages in. Bliss.
PS: I first encountered Tyler after watching The Accidental Tourist in… my early 20s, I guess? I loved the film so much and loved the protagonist so much that I sought the book out. That man, that emotionally distant writer, was me. (It’s a little scary to realise that I thought of myself as ’emotionally distant’ in my early 20s.) I couldn’t believe a woman had written so acutely about a man, though today, I don’t make these gendered generalisations anymore.
PPS: Just felt like a bitty revival was overdue.
Baradwaj Rangan 
tonks
September 13, 2015
Just out of curiosity : which were the other three? 🙂
LikeLike
Radhika
September 13, 2015
Understated is right. I love Anne Tyler – not just her novels, even the few short stories I’ve read of hers, rare as they are, are gems. What fascinates me (also) is that she totally shuns publicity. It’s rare to sight an interview with her and in these publicity-hungry days where an author has to be part film-star (the last Lit-Fest, the women authors were all drop dead gorgeous in looks and style) and part performer (if you hear Shashi Tharoor reading, voice modulations and hair pushbacks adding to the effects, you’ll know what I mean), it’s wonderful that she’s as appreciated as she is for the power of her quiet writing.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Sifting
September 13, 2015
I know that dilemma where your brain insists that you have to somehow find that required number of books because of the deal 🙂 🙂 Then you went and got that one you liked. Hurrah!
…that I started considering things like The Monk Who Sold His Rolls-Royce… or whatever
LikeLiked by 1 person
brangan
September 13, 2015
Radhika: Didn’t know she wrote short stories. Will look for them, thanks. Doesn’t she remind you of a more… expansive Alice Munro? In the sense that if Munro opened out her stories and deigned to play with drama, Tyler is what you’d get 🙂
LikeLike
Sukanya
September 13, 2015
I adore Anne Tyler’s books. Rarely has one of her books left me without a desire to return to a simpler way of life in a world where being absolutely true to yourself is the only thing expected of you, a world where the gentle people of the world get their deserved happy endings.
LikeLike
tonks
September 13, 2015
There is a character called Junior in “A Spool of blue thread” who is an expert at building houses that are classy and unpretentious:
How he came by it nobody knew, but he had the most unerring nose for anything pretentious. No two-story columns for Junior! No la-di-da portes cochères, with their intimations of chauffeured limousines gliding up to let their passengers off!
Anne Tyler’s writing is a lot like that : well written, classy and yet totally unpretentious (and readable)
There are lovely lines and turns of phrases throughout the book, and one of my favourites is a simile describing Junior falling in love with the house he built for someone else and the way he felt after he handed over the house to its new owner :
Like a love-struck groomsman who hangs around the bride long after the wedding, he kept inventing excuses to pop in.
This is probably the third American family saga I read this year (after Go set a watchman and East of Eden). I liked this one the best.
LikeLiked by 1 person
tonks
September 13, 2015
I bought just that one book, and am now about 120 pages in. Bliss.
Yikes. How did I miss that. I must have been skim reading. My apologies…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Santosh Kumar T K
September 14, 2015
“… though today, I don’t make these gendered generalisations anymore. …”
oh, if one were to employ the twitter parlance, you just have “grown and evolved.”
LikeLike
Apu
September 15, 2015
What a coincidence: Reading my first Anne Tyler (finally) – Dinner at Homesick restaurant, and getting drawn in. Funny that I also compared her to Alice Munro, but I have read only short stories of Alice Munro.
LikeLike
Rahini David
September 15, 2015
BR: How about a non-Bitty Review at the end of it? I don’t think I have ever read a Book Review from you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reuben
September 15, 2015
This book has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize for fiction.
LikeLike
brangan
September 15, 2015
Wow, what a coincidence. I didn’t remember this being on the long list, so the news is especially sweet. For a change, a Booker novel we can actually read 😉
LikeLike