He asks Delia to pretend that she's his girlfriend. Terrified that he might be trying to pick her up, he offers the name Adrian Bly-Brice and reveals that he's spotted his ex-wife in the store with the accountant she left him for. A younger man approaches and begins to chat with her. Delia Grinstead shops for her family's groceries, lost in thought in the produce section about how oddly vegetables are named. The story begins in the suburbs of Baltimore. Membership in that age demographic is not required to become enraptured with Tyler's effortless wit, keen naturalism or existential questioning, nor is it needed to get caught up her protagonist's decision to walk away from life as she knows it and start fresh. Anne Tyler's compulsively absorbing comic drama published in 1995 fulfills the middle chapter.
Taken together, each novel documents the human experience at critical points, ages 18, 45 and 65, perhaps. If Ladder of Years isn't already one of my favorite novels, The Last Picture Show and The Remains of the Day can see it in their rearview mirrors.
0 kommentar(er)
