4 Stars 
This, Anne Tyler's 20th novel, is one of the books on the 2015 Man Booker Prize longlist.
Like
Tyler’s other novels, this is a chronicle of family life. This time it is the Whitshank family of
Baltimore that is under the spotlight.
The first part focuses on Red and Abby, the septuagenarians who are
still living in the family home built by Red’s father, and their four adult
children and families. The second half looks back in time to show how
Red and Abby and Red’s parents (Junior and Linnie Mae) met and married.
The book
examines family dynamics in such a way that every reader will find some
similarities with his/her own family.
There are jealousies, resentments, and secrets. Each family member has a role, such as the
prodigal son or the nurturer or the peacekeeper or the bossy sibling, and everyone has emotional needs that come into play.
Like a
spool which keeps spinning out its thread, things are handed down through the
generations. The house and business, for
example, came to the family because of Junior’s industriousness. There are similarities in physical
appearance: “their leanness was the
rawboned kind.” Talents and traits have
also been inherited: Red and Jeannie,
his second daughter, are all talented with their hands like Junior, whereas
Merrick, Red’s sister, and Amanda, Red’s oldest child, share Junior’s concern
for social status.
The
Whitshank family is described as “one of those enviable families that radiate
clannishness and togetherness and just . . . specialness.” Indeed “they imagined they were special,” but
one of their quirks is “they had a talent for pretending that everything was
fine.” These descriptions suggest one of
the major themes in the book: the
stories we tell ourselves and others may not be accurate reflections of reality. So many of the characters have romanticized
memories, but it turns out that the truth is less glamorous and more
complex. Abby, for example, repeatedly
tells the story of falling in love with Red on “a beautiful, breezy,
yellow-and-green afternoon,” yet she fails to mention that she was dating
another guy at the time. Linnie talks
about her love of Junior being “’Just like Romeo and Juliet,’” but the truth is
much darker.
The
Whitshanks have created a family mythology around two stories. One is about how Junior came to build the
family home and the second is about Merrick’s marriage to a man who was once
her best friend’s fiancé. The narrator
comments, “Patience. . . was what the Whitshanks imagined to be the theme of
their two stories – patiently lying in wait for what they believed should come
to them.” Outsiders, however, might have
a more objective view: “But someone more
critical might say that the theme was envy . . . [and] both stories had led to
disappointment.” The Whitshanks choose
to have a partial view of the truth.
Controlling
the family story is of importance to Abby; at one point, she complains, “’The
trouble with dying . . . is that you don’t get to see how everything turns
out. You won’t know the ending.’” Another example concerns their summer
neighbours for 36 years. Amanda realizes
that they might have “noticed a hidden crack somewhere – a sharp exchange or an
edgy silence or some sign of strain” and so the Whitshanks choose never to talk
to the next-door cottagers. Exchanging
greetings with someone new might involve acknowledging their lack of
specialness: “’we’d have to give our boring names, and our boring
occupations.’”
Tyler is not
judgmental, however. The point is that
the Whitshanks are no different than any other family: “There was nothing remarkable about the
Whitshanks. None of them was
famous. None of them could claim
exceptional intelligence. And in looks,
they were no more than average.” They,
“like anybody else, . . . [are] Insufferable and likeable. Bad and
good.’” They might have a bad sheep,
sibling rivalry, buried resentments, and hidden secrets, but what family
doesn’t?
This is
certainly not a novel of plot. It is,
however, a wonderful portrait of a family, a family which in its ordinariness
is like most families. And perhaps that
is what makes them so special and this book special as well.
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