Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts' influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation.įull of heartbreak and hilarity, French Braid is classic Anne Tyler: a stirring, uncannily insightful novel of tremendous warmth and humor that illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives, the impossibility of breaking free from those who love us, and how close-yet how unknowable-every family is to itself. A new Anne Tyler novel is an island of certainty in a tumultuous world. The ever reliable and delightful Anne Tyler. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family's orbit, for reasons none of them understand. Fans of Anne Tyler will be delighted by French Braid, a family saga that takes us from the 1950s to the present. EDT (Alla Dreyvitser/The Washington Post) Gift Article Everything. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. Anne Tyler’s ‘French Braid’ is entirely familiar, and that’s just perfect Review by Ron Charles Maat 8:00 a.m. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959.

“A quietly subversive novel, tackling fundamental assumptions about womanhood, motherhood and female aging.” -Jennifer Haigh, New York Times Book Review From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author-a funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one Baltimore family’s foibles, from a boyfriend with a red Chevy in the 1950s up to a longed-for reunion with a grandchild.

The french braid anne tyler