Anne Tyler : Four Complete Novels

Rating:
Summary: Mixed bag.
Review: Four complete early novels by Tyler.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a bittersweet retelling of the history of a family, a family with its own peculiar insecurities and rivalries that is nonetheless bound together by love, even if the family members realize that too late. A quiet, slow-moving book, it is nonetheless an engrossing read filled with real, engaging, multi-faceted characters.

If Morning Ever Comes is a lukewarm early offering by a gifted novelist. The story concerns a young man trying to leave behind his home of six sisters, but I suggest you skip it altogether in favor of one of Tyler's later, and much better, offerings.

Morgan's Passing follows an eccentric named Morgan as he bumbles through his life, putting on one costume after another, one persona after another, in an effort to discover who he is really is. It's not him but the woman who falls in love with him who discovers that, though. A quiet, entertaining read.

I didn't think The Tin Can Tree lived up to the strength of Tyler's other publications. It concerns the aftermath of a little girl's accidental death and the effect of the death on the people who live in the same house -- her family and neighbors. While the prose and characterization, as always, are strong, the story isn't that compelling. It just seems to amble along to no particular spot in particular.