This happened back in March of 2010, when the Philadelphia trainstation still had the kind of information board that clickety-clackedthe various gate assignments rolled up. Serena Drew stood directlyin front of it, gazing intently at the listing for the next train to Baltimore.
The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever venture beyond Baltimore, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. The youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family's orbit, for reasons none of them understands. This novel illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives, the impossibility of breaking free from those who love us, and how close — yet unknowable — every family is to itself.
Anne Tyler, who has won a Pulitzer Prize, is one of my favorite authors. So I've been waiting for my turn to read her new novel about "one Baltimore family’s foibles, from a boyfriend with a red Chevy in the 1950s up to a longed-for reunion with a grandchild in our pandemic present." (Yeah, featuring the pandemic shows how new this book is.)
