Anne Tyler

"It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon." This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The whole family -- their two daughters and two sons, their grandchildren, even their faithful old dog -- is on the porch, listening contentedly as Abby tells the tale they have heard so many times before. And yet this gathering is different too: Abby and Red are growing older, and...

"The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever venture beyond Baltimore, 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...

Liam Pennywell, who set out to be a philosopher and ended up teaching fifth grade, never much liked the job at that run-down private school, so early retirement doesn’t bother him. But he is troubled by his inability to remember anything about the first night that he moved into his new and spare condominium on the outskirts of Baltimore. All he knows when he wakes up the next day in the hospital is that his head is sore and bandaged. His effort...

Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not of her memory. It was a Sunday night in 1944 when her husband left the little row house on Baltimore's Calvert Street, abandoning Pearl to raise their three children alone: Jenny, high-spirited and determined, nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loves; the older son, Cody, a wild and incorrigible youth possessed by the lure of power and money; and sweet, clumsy Ezra, Pearl's favorite, who...

A chance airport encounter between two families--the Donaldsons, and the Iranian-born Yasdans--as both couples await the arrival of an adopted daughter from Korea, prompts an examination about what it means to be an American.

In this novel the author explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances in their house, on the roadway, in the markets. Only Dorothy's unexpected appearances from the dead help him to live in the moment and to find some peace. Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron has spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him. So when he meets Dorothy, a plain, outspoken,...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered that she had turned into the wrong person." The woman is Rebecca Davitch, a fifty-three-year-old grandmother.
"You’ll want to turn back to the first chapter the moment you finish the last.” —PEOPLE
On the surface, Beck, as she is known to the Davitch clan, is outgoing, joyous, a natural celebrator....

Charlotte is a seemingly mild-mannered, middle-aged housewife--who's decided to leave her husband and skip town. Her mind is made up and all that's left to do is go to the bank and withdraw her money. But while she's waiting in line, her plans are suddenly changed when a desperate young man robs the bank--and takes Charlotte along as a hostage.

The beloved bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author brings us a novel that is “funny and lyric and true" (The New Yorker).
Through the syncopated rhythms of the ragtime era to the thumping, rocking beats of the 1970s, generations of Pecks have maintained a determined steadiness. Adamantly middle class—Peck-proud, as the family slogan goes—they are quick to sweep under the rug those members who do not...

Saint Maybe is the rich and absorbing story of a young man's guilt over his brother's death and his struggle to atone for the wrong he feels he has done. On a quiet street in Baltimore in 1965, seventeen-year-old Ian Bedloe lives with his family in an "ideal, apple-pie household," enjoying the comfort of family traditions and indulging in all the usual dreams of the future. Until one night, when Ian's stinging words to his brother bring tragedy --...