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Summary: Oh, yes, now I remember why I didn't like Accidental Tourist
Review: This book was a choice for our book club, so I felt obligated to read it. About three quarters through, it just became too dull. I just abandoned it. It is an ordinary book about some ordinary people. Nothing special. I would pass.
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Summary: Divine Romp
Review: THE AMATEUR MARRIAGE is a divine romp in the tradition of THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE, A PERFECT DAY, and MY FRACTURED LIFE. The images leap off the page in the tradition of MY FRACTURED LIFE and the address of relationship shares precision with A PERFECT DAY. The characters are unique in their commonness (for a very rewarding contradiction). I am delighted with this book and recommend it.
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Summary: we're all of us amateurs
Review: like a reviewer noted on this novel's dust jacket, no matter how robbe-grillet you are, no matter how much you eschew traditional, realist story-telling, anne tyler gently cajoles you into her tale until you put down her book for the night and realize you really DO care about whether michael and pauline are able to pull their marriage back together. these two people comprising the amateur marriage (for they just can't seem to get it professional) and their children, AND their grandchildren are deftly portrayed, for tyler believes in *showing*, not telling. I felt michael and pauline's final fight in the middle of my chest, and when my fiancé and I had a tiff later that day, my reality slowed as I wondered, "will he walk out as Michael did?" that said, such realistic writing isn't poetry, and the prose didn't sing as, say, lethem's or coetzee's does. and I can't say the plot was *exciting* as much as it was simply *real,* for let's be honest -- we're pretty much all amateurs.
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Summary: Anne Tyler is SOOO Good!
Review: I have read ALL of Anne Tyler's books and every one of them is excellent. She has such a talent for making everyday people interesting, bringing out their personalities and balancing humor along with humanity and warmth. This book, as with all of her books, draws you into the middle of the life of the characters. Before you know it, you are one the last page and wondering what will happen to them now?Anne really makes you care for the charaters even WAY after reading her books. I can't wait for her next one
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Summary: Wonderful book
Review: I loved this book. I will not go into the story as other people have, but this book made me cry and made me laugh and it made me think. I could relate to the family. Ann Tyler is one of the best writers I know. I always like her books, but this one I loved. It's an epic in the sense that it covers about a 60 year span. Didn't want the book to end. Read it and enjoy it.
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Summary: Please Save this Marriage --A Mirror into Our World
Review: This is one of the best told modern American tales of the most over-rated institute we have today--marriage. As much debating is taking place over who can and can't marry today--questions that are searched for with our couple we meet fall into issues of: Safety, security, life-long happiness, empowerment. No matter our age, race, religion, sexual orientation--marriage, the good, bad and ugly are explored in this terrific read. Ann Tyler's story takes us through 60 years. A relationship that begins in the 1940s, just before Pearl Harbor. The author has once again taken a microscope and perhaps microphone into the lives of the two main characters and chartered a course for them with all of the makings for a "You-know-it's-going-to-be-bad" chorus from the moment the two soon-to-be man and wife first encounter each other. Pauline stumbles into Michael's family grocery with a nick on her head from being too boisterous during a community parade--a glimpse into the happy-go-lucky main character and wife. Wearing red, flashing the world her spit-fire personality, we soon find the two are in the dating game, then quickly onto marriage--then with children, then dealing with the in-laws and holiday rituals, then suddenly losing a child--not through death, but instead losing her to the hippy ways of sunny California in the 60s--and finally into a slow death of a relationship-- of which at times I found to be like watching a car accident during a morning commute--I don't want to look, but I have to. The dialogue could have been stripped from any married couple's kitchen, dining room or living room (if one were to be honest). The slow-burn, side-ways stares, the irreversible comments, the dark thoughts of each as one steps back with ambivilence thinking of the other--"I married this person, What was I thinking. . . Can that have possibly been what they said"--all scripts any married person replays in their homes any number of times. This is not a mournful journey--it is a journey that takes you through the inevitable twists and turns marriage takes you and considers questions we all have once we are married: Have I made the right decision, Was this the person I was meant to spend my life with--and if not, Will I be given a second chance? OR, if I make a choice--and that choice is one which I can never go back on--will I be less of a person for having admitted that I might have judged too soon--that I'd give anything to have it the way it was. Read this if you're married, read this if your divorced, read this if you think about marriage and are in a marriage of sorts--it is an amazing examination of our spirit and love for finding "just the right person for just the right life."
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Summary: Tyler is a genius but this book is a pass
Review: Anne Tyler is so abundantly talented that you hate to say anything negative about her most recent book; however, this novel is not in the same league as most of her other touching work. Of course, you will get flashes of her genius, but I found these moments very brief and much less heart-wrenching than those in her other novels. If you've not had a chance to read all of her great books (lucky you!), then take a pass on "Amateur Marriage" and pick up "Breathing Lessons", "Accidental Tourist", "Saint Maybe", "Ladder of Years", "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant", "Earthly Possessions", "A Patchwork Planet" et etc. Tyler is truly one of our best writers who's hit a bump in the road.
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Summary: Family members lost and found
Review: Michael and Pauline married after Michael was discharged from the service during World War II. An accident in training had produced in him a decided limp. They were married, surprising the customers of Michael's mother's store and St. Cassian's parish. Pauline and Michael's mother became friends. Later there was a baby, Lindy. A grocery store's business comes in waves. Michael experienced Pauline's absence as a form of feeling. Additional children were named George and Karen. The family moved to housing in the outskirts of the city. It was Elmview Acres established in 1947. Michael's mother lived with them. She was called Mother Anton. Pauline still returned to the old neighborhood to play cards. The story shifts and Lindy has attained the age of seventeen. Her favorite author is Jack Kerouac. Lindy was wild, but her room was neat. Mother Anton had died when Karen was in kindergarten. When Lindy failed to come home one night her sister and brother covered up for her. Eventually the police were called. The last time it seemed that Lindy would show up any minute, but she did not. After Lindy's leaving, Karen and George became mute and withdrawn. In 1968 the family learned that Lindy was in San Francisco. Lindy had a little boy. She was staying in a place called the Retreat. Lindy's child's name was Pagan. Michael thought that walking with a small child was like herding water. Michael and Pauline returned to Baltimore with Pagan. When their thirtieth wedding anniversary was celebrated, there was another grandson, JoJo. Shortly afterwards the couple arranged to separate and to share custody of Pagan. Pauline could not recall what their last fight concerned. After the separation, Michael became interested in Anna. George's son JoJo had a sister, Samantha. Anna and Michael married. Pauline held a grudge against Anna but not against Michael. In 1990 Lindy returned. George knew her right away. Their mother, Pauline, had died in 1987. Pagan was teaching music in an experimental school for autistic children. The Anne Tyler books are reassuring. Less than perfect families are portrayed. Somehow family members muddle along to suitable outcomes.
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Summary: A tremendous change for Anne Tyler and I like it !!
Review: I've read every Anne Tyler book or maybe I should say novelette. This book is, to me, her first full length novel. A tremendous change for her but, perhaps, one for the better. Some of her books of late have not had the incredible mesmerizing characters of her earlier stories and the plots have started to seem somewhat repetitive. For me, this story was a smashing sucess and I'm back in love. If you are an Anne fan expecting one of her usual novelettes with zany characters, this book will surprise you. She has taken a totally new direction with a story covering several decades and I fully approve.
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Summary: Extraordinary Mediocrity
Review: "The Amateur Marriage" is an ode to the middle class. Author Anne Tyler not only writes about middle class characters, she captures a middle class feel to the entire story. It is a fine piece of extraordinary writing about mediocrity. The writing is just as good as "The Da Vinci Code", "The Secret Life of Bees", "My Fractured Life", or any other top books that WOW the reader. Yet it has a commonality feel of subdued interest just like "The Accidental Tourist".
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