A Guide to Anne Tyler Books

The Garretts took their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They rarely leave home, but in some ways, they have never been farther apart. Mercy aspires to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, Alice and Lily, could not have less in common. And, their youngest, David, is already determined to leave his family’s orbit, for reasons none of them understand. Their lives advance across decades, and the Garretts’ influence on one another ripples unmistakably through each generation. Heartbreaking and hilarious, this story illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives and the impossibility of breaking free from those who love us.

Micah Mortimer is a self-employed tech expert, superintendent of his apartment building, and cautious to a fault behind the steering wheel. He seems content with leading a steady, circumscribed life. That is until one day his routines are blown apart when his woman friend (he refuses to call anyone in her late thirties a “girlfriend”) tells him she’s facing eviction and a teenager shows up on his doorstep claiming to be his son. These surprises throw Micah’s meticulously organized life off-kilter, and risk changing him forever. This novel is a funny and joyful story about seeing the world through new eyes.

First appearing in the pages of Seventeen Magazine, this story has become one of Anne Tyler’s most widely beloved short stories. Daisy Coble has been a good mother, so she is ashamed to learn that her son, Donny, has been misbehaving in school. He’s been noisy, lazy, and was caught smoking. She lays awake wondering where she has gone wrong. Unsure of herself, she follows the advice of professionals and hires Donny a tutor with some unusual ideas to set the boy straight. But has the gap between them grown too wide to bridge?

Willa Drake has had three opportunities to start her life over: In 1967, as a schoolgirl whose mother suddenly disappeared; in 1977, when considering a marriage proposal; and in 1997, as a young widow trying to hold her family together. So, she is surprised when, in 2017, she is given one last chance to change everything. She receives a startling phone call from a stranger which inspires her to fly across the country to Baltimore to help a young woman she’s never met. The impulsive decision leads Willa into uncharted territory – surrounded by eccentric neighbors who treat each other like family, she finds hope and transformation in unexpected places.

Susanna has an incredible gift: She can heal people’s ailments with a touch of her hand. People travel from far and wide based on their faith in her abilities. But Susanna’s power only works in certain cases – it’s a semi-miracle. As she grows into adulthood, her calling to cure people becomes a burden. Why is she able to take people’s pain away sometimes, and not others? With the balm of time and wisdom of experience, Susanna must learn to live with the mysterious nature of her miracle.

A retelling of William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Kate Battista is stuck. How did she end up running the home of her eccentric scientist father and uppity younger sister Bunny? And, she’s always in trouble at work. Her preschool students love her, but their parents don’t always appreciate her unusual opinions and forthright manner. Dr. Battista has problems of his own. He is on the verge of a breakthrough that could help millions, but his brilliant young lab assistant, Pyotr, is about to be deported. Dr. Battista cooks up a plan to help Pyotr stay in the country and is relying – as usual – on Kate to help. Kate is furious, but will she be able to resist the two men’s touchingly ludicrous campaign to bring her around?

Nominated for the Man Booker Prize, A Spool of Blue Thread follows the lives of four generations of the Whitshank family. “It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon …” This is how Abby Whitshank always describes the day she fell in love with Red in July 1959. From Red’s parents, newly arrived in Baltimore in the 1920s, to the grandchildren carrying the Whitshank legacy into the twenty-first century, the Whitshanks radiate an indefinable kind of specialness, but like all families, their stories reveal only part of the picture: Abby and Red and their four grown children have accumulated not only tender moments, and laughter, but also jealousies, disappointments, and carefully guarded secrets.

Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron grew up fending off an overbearing sister. When he meets Dorothy, an outspoken, independent woman who’s like a breath of fresh air, he marries her without hesitation. They have a happy, unremarkable marriage while Aaron works at his family’s business publishing books that guide beginners through the trials of life. But, when a tree crashes into their house, killing Dorothy, Aaron is lost. Only Dorothy’s unexpected appearances – in their house, on the roadway, in the market – help him live in a moment and find peace. Aaron discovers that maybe for this beginner, this is a way to say goodbye.

Liam Pennywell wanted to be a philosopher but ended up teaching fifth grade. He never liked his job at that run-down private school, so early retirement doesn’t bother him. But he is troubled to discover he can’t remember anything about the first night he moved into his new condo on the outskirts of Baltimore. All he knows is he woke up in a hospital bed sore and bandaged. His efforts to recover moments of his life lead him to an unexpected detour. What he needs is someone who can help him remember, what he gets is … something quite different.

Two families meet at the Baltimore airport waiting for their baby girls to arrive from Korea: The Iranian-American Sami and Ziba Yazdan, with Ziba’s mother, Maryam, in tow and the brash and all-American Bitsy and Brad Donaldson, plus extended family armed with camcorders and balloons. After they decide to throw an impromptu “arrival party,” a tradition is born as well as a lifelong friendship between the two families. As they raise their daughters, both families must grapple with questions of assimilation and identity. And when Bitsy’s recently widowed father shows interest in Maryam, she must confront her own ideas of what it means to be other, as well as discover who she is, and what she values.

A stunning story encompassing a lifetime of dreams, regrets, and reckonings. Maggie and Ira Moran are on a road trip from Maryland to Pennsylvania to attend the funeral of a friend. On the road, they reflect on their marriage, its trials and its triumphs, and their ability to tolerate each other’s faults with patience and affection. What begins as a day trip becomes a revelatory and unexpected journey as Ira and Maggie rediscover the strength of their bond and the joy of having someone with whom to share the ride.

They seemed like the perfect couple. The moment Pauline walked into his mother’s grocery store, Michael was smitten. In the heat of World War II fervor, they are propelled into a hasty wedding, but they never should have gotten married. Pauline is impulsive and tumbles through life while Michael is cautious and deliberate. While other young marriages, equally ignorant at the start, seem to grow more seasoned, Pauline and Michael remain amateurs. In time, their quarrels take their toll. Following the decades of their marriage, this story explores the wise, embracing, deeply perceptive, and complex entanglements of family.

Evie Decker is a shy, slightly plump teenager who’s lonely and silent. But her quiet life is shattered when she hears the voice of Drumstrings Casey on the radio and becomes infatuated with him. She bursts out of her lonely shell and manages to meet the man of her obsession. With his attentive gaze, he becomes all too real.

Beck, as she’s known to the Davitch clan, seems outgoing and a natural celebrator. Giving parties, after all, is her vocation – a business she marries into after meeting Joe Davitch at an engagement party held at his family’s Baltimore row house. Soon, Joe and his three daughters sweep Beck into their orbit and before she knows it she is being embraced by his extended family hosting endless parties. Thirty years later, in the aftermath of a disastrous family party, Beck is caught unaware by the question of who she really is. Is she an imposter in her own life? Is it even her own life anymore? And how will she try and get it back?

Travel writer Macon Leary hates travel, surprises, and anything outside his routine. Immobilized by grief, Macon is becoming increasingly prickly, alone, and unwilling to compromise his creature comforts. That is, until he meets Muriel, an eccentric dog trainer too optimistic to let Macon wallow. Despite Macon’s best efforts, Muriel upends his solitary life catapulting him into the center of a messy, beautiful love story he never imagined.

Barnaby Gaitlin is a near 30, divorced, underachieving father stuck at a job going nowhere with Rent-a-Back. He performs miscellaneous chores for the elderly and is otherwise indebted to his wealthy parents over his juvenile habit of breaking into people’s homes. Then, one day, Barnaby is on a bus en route to visit his young daughter when he meets Sophia Barnes who agrees to perform a favor for a stranger. Thus begins a journey of Barnaby shedding his youthful mistakes and irresponsibility and growing into the “good boy” his elderly clients believe him to be.

Thirty-eight-year-old Jeremy Pauling has never left home. He lives on the top floor of a Baltimore row house where he makes collages using little people snipped from wrapping paper. His elderly mother lives in the rooms below him, until her death. It is then that Jeremy is forced to take in Mary Tell and her child as borders. Mary doesn’t know how much courage it takes for Jeremy to look her in the eye, Jeremy is fragile and easily torn – especially when he’s falling in love …

With bittersweet humor, this story is about Mrs. Emerson, a widow with seven adult children, who lives alone in a Victorian mansion outside Baltimore with only a collection of antique clocks to keep her company. Elizabeth Abbot, a beautiful twenty-three-year-old aimless bohemian leads a vagabond lifestyle until one day she crosses paths with Mrs. Emerson. Elizabeth manages to convince the older woman to hire her as a handyman. When three of the strange Emerson children return to their childhood home for a visit, they are all irresistibly drawn to Elizabeth.

Stoic Pearl, abandoned by her wandering husband, raised her three children on her own. Now grown, they are linked by painful memories. Cody, wealthy and hardened by life’s disappointments, has turned cruel. Thrice-married Jenny is errant and passionate. And Ezra, the flawed saint, stayed at home to look after his mother and run a restaurant cooking food people are homesick for. Now gathered during a time of loss, they reluctantly unlock the shared secrets of their past and will discover if what binds them together is stronger than what tears them apart.

Charlotte Emory has always lived a quiet, conventional life in Maryland. She lives as simply as possible, and one day decides to simplify it even further and leaves her husband. Suddenly, during a trip to the bank, Charlotte’s life is pulled into an entirely different direction when a young man in a nylon jacket takes her hostage during a robbery. Soon, the two are heading south into an unknown future, and a most unexpected fate.

In Anne Tyler’s debut novel, she offers readers a timeless portrait of a young man’s homecoming. Ben Joe Hawkes is a worrier. Raised by his mother, grandmother, and a flock of sisters he has always felt like an outsider. When he learns that one of his sisters has left her husband, he heads back home and into the confusion of childhood memories on a journey through youth, identity, family, and unforeseen love.

Morgan Gower works at the Cullen’s hardware store in Baltimore. He has seven daughters and a warmhearted wife, but as he moves into the gray area of middle age, he finds his household growing tedious. Then, Morgan meets a couple of lovely young newlyweds under some extreme circumstances – and the three discover that no one’s heart is safe …

Ian Bedloe is the ideal teenage son. He leads a cheery, apple-pie life with his family in Baltimore until a careless and vicious rumor leads to a devastating tragedy. Imploding from guilt, Ian feels responsible for the tragedy as his life implodes and he loses his star athlete status and bright future. Searching for salvation he comes across a storefront with a neon sign that reads: CHURCH OF THE SECOND CHANCE. Through the power of faith and love of family, he begins to give his penance as a gift. After spending years trying to atone for his mistakes, Ian finds forgiveness and peace in a life he has to build for himself.

Through generations, the Pecks have maintained a determined steadiness. Adamantly middle class and Peck-proud – as the family slogan goes – they are quick to sweep under the rug those members who do not live up to their standards. Maybe that’s why Caleb Peck disappeared with his violoncello as a boy? Sixty years later, his brother Daniel starts looking for answers. He turns to his daughter-in-law, Justine, another Peck family eccentric for help. A studied tarot card reader, Justine continues to find the same message in the cards: Change is coming. An unlikely pair struggle against a stifling family, but Daniel and Justine believe they’ll find freedom in just the right mix of magic, music, and mystery.

In the small town of Larksville, the Pikes have chosen to stand still, hiding from an unnameable past. Mrs. Pike seldom speaks, while Mr. Pike maintains a forced stoicism. Only their ten-year-old son, Simon, seems to acknowledge the world has changed, he just doesn’t understand why. The strange shroud over their home cannot be contained and soon starts to inch its way toward their neighbors. Brothers, Ansel and James will have to confront their own dark secrets if they have any hope to bring the neighborhood back into the light.