anne tyler

Happy Birthday!

Hat tip to my daily edition of The Writer’s Almanac, which informs me that today is her 64th.

Tyler is one of my favorite writers. She is a master (or would that be ‘mistress’?) of description, especially of people. Two books of hers I own are The Accidental Tourist and Saint Maybe. I've also read Ladder of Years.

I was surprised to read "...she grew up in a series of utopian Quaker communes, where she was home schooled and isolated from the modern world....She first attended public school at the age of 11 (that would be in 1952), and her classmates were amazed that she’d never used a phone. "

The brief bio goes on to say of the present-day Tyler: "...she decided she didn’t want to be a public person. She never goes on book tours or speaks on talk shows, and if she answers any questions form journalists, she only does so in writing."

Also quoted is the beginning paragraph of her novel Back When We Were Grownups:

"Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person. She was fifty-three years old by then—a grandmother. Wide and soft and dimpled, with two short wings of dry, fair hair flaring almost horizontally from a center part. Laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. A loose and colorful style of dress edging dangerously close to Bag Lady. Give her credit. Most people her age would say it was too late to make any changes."

I’ve not read this one, but I think I want to!