Anne Tyler is concerned with the lives of ordinary people—in this case a middle-aged couple, Maggie and Ira Moran. The novel explores a common confusion of middle age—how we got where we ended up in life.
After attending an unusual funeral, in which Maggie’s best friend Serena attempted to recreate her wedding day—Maggie talks Ira into detouring to visit their ex-daughter-in-law, Fiona, and their granddaughter, Leroy. The situation with these two is unfortunate, for the Morans have not seen their seven-year-old granddaughter since her third birthday. However, Maggie is convinced that son Jesse and Fiona still love each other, and all they need is a little nudge to get back together.
It is immediately apparent that Maggie is a somewhat scattered thinker, while Ira is more practical. It takes a while to learn, though, something that Ira understands—Maggie is so prone to look at the positives that she doesn’t see things as they are but as she wants them to be. Unfortunately, this includes getting carried away to the point of lying about things.
This wasn’t my favorite Anne Tyler book, but it depicts some characters who seem very true to life (but are also similar to the couple in The Amateur Marriage). Maggie is, I think, supposed to be lovable, but I sympathized with Ira and thought his patience was phenomenal. Jesse is a fairly typical boy-man, another one of Tyler’s types, lacking in responsibility but whose irresponsibility may have been encouraged by Ira’s lack of faith in him. Maggie fails to see that Fiona not only left Jesse, she left the whole family because of its dynamics.
What? Me Read? 