The Amateur Marriage

“An ode to the complexities of familial love, the centripetal and centrifugal forces that keep families together and send their members flying apart, the supremely ordinary pleasures and frustrations of middle-class American life.”
—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

“Tyler ranges over 60 years of American experience . . . from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the anniversary of that day in 2001 . . . as she tracks one couple’s domestic disturbances. . . . [Her] writing is beautifully accurate, more often than not with a glinting vein of humor.”
—William H. Pritchard, New York Times Book Review, front cover

“She evokes the entire sweep of [a marriage] with uncommon delicacy & dignity . . . gives us the feeling of being inside Michael and Pauline Anton’s marriage.”
—John Freeman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“She traces the stormy union of two people who love but can’t stand each other.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“This ‘wickedly good’ author has come to represent the best of today’s American literature. . . . She is an exquisite chronicler of the everyday. . . . Her characters are at once infuriating and endearing, conservative yet quietly eccentric.”
—Lisa Allardice, The Observer, London

“Her command of what will move a story forward & engross a reader is faultless.”
—Martha Southgate, Baltimore Sun

“She expertly explores the perils of marriage. . . . Wise & observant. . . . She has the uncanny ability to expose the most confusing contradictions of love.”
—Connie Ogle, Miami Herald

“In the fervor of WWII, Michael and Pauline rush head-long into marriage, then live in a constant state of turmoil. . . . We watch safely from a distance like a busybody neighbor hiding behind the curtains, judgmental yet fascinated.”
—Kim Askew, Elle magazine