Macon Leary* is a man who craves order, but suddenly his life is spinning out of control. His son has been killed; his wife has left him; he’s broken his leg; even his dog has developed alarming behavioural problems. On top of all this, a stranger has entered his life in the person of a dog trainer who seems determined to involve herself in his life, a life which he strives to keep unattached to strangers.
I adore Anne Tyler, and there’s a lot to like in this novel. It’s a marvellous portrait of a man who has never in his life considered the question of what it is he wants, or who it is he wants to be. His siblings seem cartoonish at times in their love of order and routine (down to alphabetising the pantry), but as the wife of a man from a large family, I thought they were spot-on in many ways (down to the made-up but specifically-defined words and the self-invented games that outsiders give up on following). One of Tyler’s (many) gifts is the ability to take her most unlovable characters, strip them down to what makes them tick, and end by making them sympathetic after all. Pearl Tull in “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant” is a good example of this, but then so is Macon: in the first chapter, when his wife leaves him, we’re entirely on her side, but by the end of the novel, we’re rooting for Macon all the way.
I chose this novel because I was in the mood for something that was a quality read, but wouldn’t cause me too much anxiety or distress (this was after I had tried and failed to read Roxane Gay’s novel about a woman raped and tortured for 13 days). In the end, while this was an enjoyable novel, it wasn’t a perfect one in the way that Homesick Restaurant was. But the characters were beautifully realised and developed, the ending unpredictable, and it met and surpassed my criteria with flying colours. Would recommend.
*No relation to Dawson Leary