Review of REDHEAD BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD by Anne Tyler

 4 Stars

This novel appeared on the 2020 Booker Prize longlist, though it didn't make the shortlist.  

Forty-three-year-old Micah Mortimer runs a one-man computer tech help service and moonlights as the super of his apartment building.  “He lives alone; he keeps to himself; his routine is etched in stone” (2).  He has a “woman friend” of three years, Cassia Slade, “though they seem to lead fairly separate lives” (4):  “they had reached the stage where things had more or less solidified:  compromises arrived at, incompatibilities adjusted to, minor quirks overlooked” (20).

Micah’s orderly, comfortable existence is shattered when the son of a college girlfriend arrives on his doorstep thinking Micah may be his biological father.  Then Cass is facing possible eviction and Micah’s response to her predicament –  “’you’ve got a car of your own you can live in’” (48) – has her ending their relationship. 

The redhead in the title is not a new girlfriend but a metaphor for Micah’s inability to see things clearly.  Having difficulty with social cues, he often misreads relationships.  There’s a wonderful description of his awkwardness:  “Sometimes when he was dealing with people, he felt like he was operating one of those claw machines on a boardwalk, those shovel things where you tried to scoop up a prize but the controls were too unwieldy and you worked at too great a remove” (151). 

Because he has such a strong need for order, Micah wants everything to be perfect.  Of course, in relationships this is not possible so his habit is to walk away when things become uncomfortably chaotic.  Certainly he has decided that “living with someone full-time was just too messy” (38).  When his routines don’t bring him comfort and he has a “nagging ache in the hollow of his chest” (93), can Micah learn to live with the disorder inherent in human interactions? 

There is a great deal of quiet humour.  Micah talks to himself in a fake French accent when he’s cooking, and when he’s driving, he imagines a Traffic God “operated by a fleet of men in shirtsleeves and green visors who frequently commented to one another on the perfection of Micah’s driving” (8).  Many of his clients are older women:  “Old ladies had the easiest problems to fix but the greatest number of fractious questions” (5).  When Micah’s sisters remember so many details about the people they’ve met, Micah thinks “Shouldn’t they be periodically clearing out their memory caches or something” (80)? 

Micah is mildly eccentric but a decent, likeable person.  He doesn’t ask a tenant to pay for grab bars because she “had cancer and was getting progressively weaker and more prone to falling” (39).  I love the little telling details which reveal so much about his personality:  he has a calendar which seems stuck to the past; his apartment is so minimalist; he’s always fiddling with his glasses so he can see; his apartment gradually becomes more and more disordered. 

During this pandemic, many aspects of our lives have become chaotic so perhaps we can learn along with Micah about living with disorder.  This book is a short but wonderful read.