Redhead by the side of the road

If Tyler's large-cast, many-faceted novels, including Clock Dance (2018), are symphonies, this portrait of a man imprisoned by his routines is a concerto. Micah Mortimer emerged from a childhood in a large family and a chaotic household desperate for order and solitude. Now in his forties, he lives in an aggressively neat and clean basement apartment in the Baltimore apartment building in which he serves as super. He is also the Tech Hermit, responding to calls from people needing computer help. He keeps to a strict schedule, which includes some time for his lady friend, Cass, a fourth-grade teacher, but not enough to interfere with his need for privacy. And then, as so often is the case in Tyler's radiantly polished and emotionally intricate tales, someone unexpected and in need appears and disrupts the status quo. Micah's catalyst for panicked self-examination and change is a stranger, Brink, a college freshman inexplicably on the lam. Micah dated Brink's mother long ago, but he's had no contact with her since. What is going on? Tyler's perfectly modulated, instantly enmeshing, heartrending, funny, and redemptive tale sweetly dramatizes the absurdities of flawed perception and the risks of rigidity.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Tyler's warmly comedic, quickly read tale, a perfect stress antidote, will delight her fans and provides an excellent first for readers new to this master of subtle and sublime brilliance.--Donna Seaman Copyright 2020 Booklist

A fastidious everyman weathers a spate of relationship stresses in this compassionate, perceptive novel from Tyler (Clock Dance). Micah Mortimer, 43, makes house calls for his Tech Hermit business and moonlights as the superintendent of his Baltimore apartment building, where the residents observe his regimented routine and wonder, through Tyler's gossip-inflected narration, "Does he ever stop to consider his life?" The disruptions begin with a call from his schoolteacher girlfriend, Cassia Slade, who is in a panic because she is facing eviction. Then college freshman Brink Adams shows up on his stoop and claims to be his son. Micah knows it isn't true, because he never slept with Brink's mother, Lorna, an old girlfriend, but he tolerates the languid, starry-eyed kid who claims to look up to him for living a working-class life and who fixated on a photo of Micah kept by Lorna. After Micah tries to put Brink in touch with Lorna, he disappears. When Cassia dumps him for not immediately offering to let her move in, Micah descends into a funk that just might push him to prove himself worthy of her companionship. While Micah's cool indifference occasionally feels like a symptom of Tyler's spare, detached style, his moments of growth bring satisfaction. This quotidian tale of a late bloomer goes down easy. Agent: Jesseca Salky, Salky Literary Management. (Apr.)

A self-employed tech expert and superintendent of his Baltimore apartment building, Micah Mortimer never, ever looks for a change in routine. But when the woman in his life faces eviction and a teenager shows up on his doorstep claiming to be his son, Micah has got to adjust.

A man straitjacketed in routine blinks when his emotional blinders are removed in Tyler's characteristically tender and rueful latest (Clock Dance, 2018, etc.).Micah's existence is entirely organized to his liking. Each morning he goes for a run at 7:15; starts his work as a freelance tech consultant around 10; and in the afternoons deals with tasks in the apartment building where he is the live-in super. He's the kind of person, brother-in-law Dave mockingly notes, who has an assigned chore for each day: "vacuuming daydusting day.Your kitchen has a day all its own" (Thursday). Dave's comments are uttered at a hilarious, chaotic family get-together that demonstrates the origins of Micah's persnickety behavior and offers a welcome note of comedy in what is otherwise quite a sad tale. Micah thinks of himself as a good guy with a good life. It's something of a shock when the son of his college girlfriend turns up wondering if Micah might be his father (not possible, it's quickly established), and it's really a shock when his casual agreement to let 18-year-old Brink crash in his apartment for a night leads Micah's "woman friend," Cass, to break up with him. "There I was, on the verge of losing my apartment," she says. "What did you do? Quickly invite the nearest stranger into your spare room." Indignant at first, Micah slowly begins to see the pattern that has kept him warily distant from other people, particularly the girlfriends who were only briefly good enough for him. (They were always the ones who left, once they figured it out.) The title flags a lovely metaphor for Micah's lifelong ability to delude himself about the nature of his relationships. Once he realizes it, agonizing examples of the human connections he has unconsciously avoided are everywhere visible, his loneliness palpable. These chapters are painfully poignantthank goodness Tyler is too warmhearted an artist not to give her sad-sack hero at least the possibility of a happy ending.Suffused with feeling and very moving. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

If Tyler's large-cast, many-faceted novels, including Clock Dance (2018), are symphonies, this portrait of a man imprisoned by his routines is a concerto. Micah Mortimer emerged from a childhood in a large family and a chaotic household desperate for order and solitude. Now in his forties, he lives in an aggressively neat and clean basement apartment in the Baltimore apartment building in which he serves as super. He is also the Tech Hermit, responding to calls from people needing computer help. He keeps to a strict schedule, which includes some time for his lady friend, Cass, a fourth-grade teacher, but not enough to interfere with his need for privacy. And then, as so often is the case in Tyler's radiantly polished and emotionally intricate tales, someone unexpected and in need appears and disrupts the status quo. Micah's catalyst for panicked self-examination and change is a stranger, Brink, a college freshman inexplicably on the lam. Micah dated Brink's mother long ago, but he's had no contact with her since. What is going on? Tyler's perfectly modulated, instantly enmeshing, heartrending, funny, and redemptive tale sweetly dramatizes the absurdities of flawed perception and the risks of rigidity.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Tyler's warmly comedic, quickly read tale, a perfect stress antidote, will delight her fans and provides an excellent "first" for readers new to this master of subtle and sublime brilliance. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.

A self-employed tech expert and superintendent of his Baltimore apartment building, Micah Mortimer never, ever looks for a change in routine. But when the woman in his life faces eviction and a teenager shows up on his doorstep claiming to be his son, Micah has got to adjust.

A fastidious everyman weathers a spate of relationship stresses in this compassionate, perceptive novel from Tyler (Clock Dance). Micah Mortimer, 43, makes house calls for his Tech Hermit business and moonlights as the superintendent of his Baltimore apartment building, where the residents observe his regimented routine and wonder, through Tyler's gossip-inflected narration, "Does he ever stop to consider his life?" The disruptions begin with a call from his schoolteacher girlfriend, Cassia Slade, who is in a panic because she is facing eviction. Then college freshman Brink Adams shows up on his stoop and claims to be his son. Micah knows it isn't true, because he never slept with Brink's mother, Lorna, an old girlfriend, but he tolerates the languid, starry-eyed kid who claims to look up to him for living a working-class life and who fixated on a photo of Micah kept by Lorna. After Micah tries to put Brink in touch with Lorna, he disappears. When Cassia dumps him for not immediately offering to let her move in, Micah descends into a funk that just might push him to prove himself worthy of her companionship. While Micah's cool indifference occasionally feels like a symptom of Tyler's spare, detached style, his moments of growth bring satisfaction. This quotidian tale of a late bloomer goes down easy. Agent: Jesseca Salky, Salky Literary Management. (Apr.)