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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Spool of Blue Thread—a funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one Baltimore family’s foibles, from a boyfriend with a red Chevy in the 1950s up to a longed-for reunion with a grandchild. “A quietly subversive novel, tackling fundamental assumptions about womanhood, motherhood and female aging.” —The New York Times Book Review The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family's orbit, for reasons none of them understand. Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts' influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation. Full of heartbreak and hilarity, French Braid is classic Anne Tyler: a stirring, uncannily insightful novel of tremendous warmth and humor that illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives, the impossibility of breaking free from those who love us, and how close—yet how unknowable—every family is to itself.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Spool of Blue Thread—a funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one Baltimore family’s foibles, from a boyfriend with a red Chevy in the 1950s up to a longed-for reunion with a grandchild. “A quietly subversive novel, tackling fundamental assumptions about womanhood, motherhood and female aging.” —The New York Times Book Review The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family's orbit, for reasons none of them understand. Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts' influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation. Full of heartbreak and hilarity, French Braid is classic Anne Tyler: a stirring, uncannily insightful novel of tremendous warmth and humor that illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives, the impossibility of breaking free from those who love us, and how close—yet how unknowable—every family is to itself.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the cover
1
THIS HAPPENED back in March of 2010, when the Philadelphia train station still had the kind of information board that clickety-clacked as the various gate assignments rolled up. Serena Drew stood directly in front of it, gazing intently at the listing for the next train to Baltimore. Why did they wait so long to post their gates here? In Baltimore, they told people farther ahead.
Her boyfriend was standing beside her, but he was more relaxed. Having sent a single glance toward the board, he was studying his phone now. He shook his head at some message and then flicked on down to the next one.
The two of them had just had Sunday lunch at James’s parents’ house. It had been Serena’s first meeting with them. For the past two weeks she had fretted about it, planning what to wear (jeans and a turtleneck, finally—the regulation grad-student outfit, so as not to seem to be trying too hard) and scouring her mind for possible topics of conversation. But things had gone fairly well, she thought. His parents had greeted her warmly and asked her right away to call them George and Dora, and his mother was such a chatterbox that conversation had not been an issue. “Next time,” she’d told Serena after the meal, “you’ll have to meet James’s sisters too and their hubbies and their kiddies. We just didn’t want to overwhelm you on your very first visit.”
Next time. First visit. That had sounded encouraging.
Now, though, Serena couldn’t even summon a sense of triumph. She was too limp with sheer relief; she felt like a wrung-out dishrag.
She and James had met at the start of the school year. James was so good-looking that she’d been surprised when he suggested going for coffee after class. He was tall and lean, with a mop of brown hair and a closely trimmed beard. (Serena, on the other hand, came very close to plump, and her ponytail was almost the same shade of beige as her skin.) In seminars he had a way of lounging back in his seat, not taking notes or appearing to listen, but then he would pop up with something unexpectedly astute. She had worried he would find her dull by comparison. One-on-one, though, he turned out to be easy company. They went to a lot of movies together and to inexpensive restaurants; and her parents, who lived in town, had already had the two of them to dinner several times and said they liked him very much.
Philadelphia’s train station was more imposing than Baltimore’s. It was vast, with an impossibly high, coffered ceiling and chandeliers like upside-down skyscrapers. Even the passengers seemed a cut above Baltimore passengers. One woman, Serena saw, was followed by her own redcap wheeling a cartload of matching luggage. As Serena was admiring the luggage (dark-brown, gleaming leather, with brass fittings), she happened to notice a young man in a suit who had paused to let the cart roll past him. “Oh,” she said.
James looked up from his phone. “Hmm?”
“I think that might be my cousin,” she said in an undertone.
“Where?”
“That guy in the suit.”
“You think it’s your cousin?”
“I’m not really sure.”
They studied the man. He seemed older than they were, but not by much. (It might just have been the suit.) He had Serena’s pale hair and her sharply peaked lips, but while her eyes were the usual Garrett-family blue, his were a pale, almost ethereal gray, noticeable even from several yards’ distance. He was staying where he was, looking up at the information board...
About the Author-
ANNE TYLER was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the author of more than twenty novels. Her twentieth novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2015. Her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Reviews-
January 17, 2022 Tyler (Redhead by the Side of the Road) returns with a dry and well-crafted look at a family that inexplicably comes apart over several decades. Serena Drew, a 20-something Baltimore grad student traveling with her boyfriend, James, thinks she recognizes her cousin, Nicholas Garrett, in the crowd at a Philadelphia train station in 2010, but she can’t say for sure because she hasn’t seen him for years. “You guys give a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘once removed,’ ” James says, and wonders if “some deep dark secret” might explain why Serena rarely sees her aunt Alice or her uncle David, Nicholas’s father. But the explanation, as it happens, is not so simple. This also turns out not to be Serena’s story, as Tyler leaves the young couple for late 1950s Baltimore, where Alice; Serena’s mother, Lily; and David are raised by their mismatched parents, a socially awkward plumber named Robin and begrudging housewife Mercy, who wants to be an artist. Once the parents become empty nesters, Mercy spends most of her days and nights in her neighboring studio. There are no big reveals, but Tyler’s focus on character development proves fruitful; a reunion organized by the wistful Robin in the ’90s is particularly affecting, as is a coda with David during the Covid-19 pandemic. As always, Tyler offers both comfort and surprise.
Parents Robin and Mercy and their three children, Alice, Lily, and David, seem to have very little in common. Even on the one family vacation they take in 1959, each goes their own way and pursues their own interests. As the children grow up and marry, they have children who display quirks, habits, and eccentricities similar to those of their grandparents. David, on looking through an old photo album with his son and grandson, realizes that family ties endure and continue to influence, even when the individual members of the family can no longer be identified. Tyler (Redhead by the Side of the Road) likens families to a French braid--for a while they are woven together in a unit, and even after the braid has come undone, the ripples created by the braid remain. The loose ties that hold this multigenerational family together last long after their lives have been unbraided. Narrator Kimberly Farr expertly presents the different personalities of the family members. She successfully delivers the joys and the sorrows, the secrets and the truths that the story holds. VERDICT Highly recommended; add to all collections.--Joanna M. Burkhardt
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Narrator Kimberly Farr enhances Anne Tyler's evocative novel, with its delightful fly-on-the-wall conversations. Listeners meet the Garrett family of Baltimore, who take their only vacation in 1959, an event that showcases their diverse personalities. The novel concludes in the 2020s. Chapters alternate among the characters' third-person viewpoints, which Farr imbues with distinction. As their children leave home, self-centered Mercy moves into her nearby studio to paint, while remote yet loving Robin hardly notices--or is in denial. The family has little contact with each other until Robin throws a 50th anniversary party, exposing secrets and unfulfilled dreams. The conclusion is beautifully moving. This is, arguably, Tyler's best work to date, and because Farr so capably fleshes out the entire Garrett family, audio is the unquestionable choice for maximum enjoyment. S.G.B. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
