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by Anne Tyler
Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she 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 market.
Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him. So when he meets Dorothy, a plain, outspoken, self-dependent young woman, she is like a breath of fresh air. Unhesitatingly he marries her, and they have a relatively happy, unremarkable marriage. But when a tree crashes into their house and Dorothy is killed, Aaron feels as though he has been erased forever. Only Dorothy's unexpected appearances from the dead help him to live in the moment and to find some peace.
Gradually he discovers, as he works in the family's vanity-publishing business, turning out titles that presume to guide beginners through the trials of life, that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying goodbye.
A beautiful, subtle exploration of loss and recovery, pierced throughout with Anne Tyler's humor, wisdom, and always penetrating look at human foibles.
BookBrowse Says
Anne Tyler's new novel, The Beginners Goodbye, follows (unfortunately) in the footsteps of her other recent novels. Anne Tyler's prose used to be cutting, concise, revelatory. Basically, everything she wrote before 1992: I was an automatic fan. Since then, she appears to have slipped into a kind of formulaic, vaguely "chick lit-ish" rut, and can't seem to find her way out. I know, I shouldn't say "chick lit," but sometimes it just works. The narrator of The Beginner's Goodbye is a man, but hardly - that is, he's hardly a character at all. I found his voice unconvincing, and oddly autistic in a way that it doesn't need to be. The story itself is appealing (a tree falls into Aaron and Dorothy's house, killing Dorothy, who reappears as a ghost and starts following Aaron around), but the writing is lifeless and sappy in turns, and altogether simply not very good. I miss the old Anne Tyler. I wonder what happened to her." - Morgan Macgregor
Others Say
"An uncharacteristically slight work by a major novelist." - Kirkus Reviews
"Starred Review. This is no gothic ghost story nor chronicle of a man unraveling in his grief, but rather an uplifting tale of love and forgiveness. By the end of this wonderful book, you've lived the lives and loves of these characters in the best possible way." - Publishers Weekly
"A classic Tyler novel that fans will want; with a reading group guide." - Library Journal
This information about The Beginner's Goodbye was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Diana Walker
Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the author of more than twenty novels. Her twentieth novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2015. Her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
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