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ABOUT THE BOOK
Michael and Pauline seemed like the perfect couple - young, good-looking, made
for each other. The moment she walked into his mother's grocery store in the
Polish neighbourhood of Baltimore, he was smitten. And in the heat of World
War II fervour, they were hastily wed. But they never should have married.
Pauline, impulsive and impractical, tumbles hit-or-miss through life; Michael,
plodding, cautious, and judgemental, proceeds deliberately. In time their foolish
quarrels take their toll. A 17-year-old daughter disappears, and some years
later this fractious pair is forced to rescue her little boy, named Pagan, from
drug-infested San Francisco, to take him home and raise him.
From the sound of the cash register in the old grocery to the counterculture
jargon of the sixties, from the miniskirts to the multilayered apparel of later
years, Anne Tyler captures the evocative nuances of everyday life during these
decades with such telling precision that every page brings smiles of recognition.
Throughout, as each of the competing voices bears witness, we are drawn ever
more deeply into the complex entanglements of family life in this marvellous,
multifaceted novel.
''A warm, compelling read - and another brilliant showcase for
Tyler's talent for
taking a common experience and lifting it out of the ordinary'
Daily Mirror
'The Amateur Marriage is an elegantly pared-down sister to Jonathan
Franzen's
brilliant The Corrections. This is hugely readable fiction, full of more
than incidental delights'
Sunday Telegraph
'Anne Tyler is a formidably skilful story-teller, with every
narrative
trick at her effortless command'
Daily Telegraph
'A brilliant writer of emotionally sophisticated novels, funny,
tragic, wise' Lynne Truss,
Independent
 ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh,
North Carolina. This is her 16th novel; her 11th, Breathing Lessons, won the
Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and
Letters. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
The title for each chapter in the book seems so appropriately interwoven
with each section of the novel, I was curious as to whether you thought about
the individual chapters before writing the book, and whether you had these titles
in mind from the start, for example 'killing the frog by degrees'
I knew approximately what would happen in each chapter, but the titles emerged
as I went along. (Well, except for "killing the frog by degrees,"
as it happens. I've been dying to use that phrase ever since someone first told
me about it.)
What are the best and worst things about being a bestselling author?
The best is the thought that people I've never met might come to know my characters
and perhaps even develop an affection for them. The worst is that when strangers
walk up to me and start talking about my books, I always worry I'm disappointing
them. I don't speak the least bit the way I write.
The novel seemed to switch between the various narrative points of view,
when reading it my sympathy always lied with the character we saw events unravel
through. Was your intention for the reader to see all the various points of
view and thus sympathise with characters equally?
Yes, and I am so pleased to hear that you did sympathise. My worry was that
readers would dismiss the marriage as a "good person/bad person" situation--one
character in the right, one in the wrong--and so I tried very hard to show both
sides.
Can you reveal anything about what you are working on at the moment?
I am in the early stages of a novel about a long-term friendship between two
Baltimore families, one American and one Iranian-American.
I read a review which suggested this novel is more pessimistic and darker
than your previous novels, would you agree with this? If so is there a reason
for this shift in mood?
I don't see it as a shift, really. (DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT, for
instance, was extremely dark.) It has seemed to me all along that life is essentially
sad but also funny and hopeful, in various surprising ways.
Do you think that Pauline and Michael were to blame for Lindy's disappearance?
I think Lindy's disappearance was just one of those baffling, unaccountable
heartbreaks that can happen in even the happiest of families. Who knows why?
Of course the Antons would guiltily review their own particular shortcomings--but
so would any other parents, I suspect.
At the end of each chapter there is a jump in time before the beginning
of the next, what was your aim in doing this? Is it more difficult to write
a novel which spans over a long period of time?
I thought of the book as a sort of connect-the-dots project; I felt I could
trust my readers to understand what must have happened between chapters. It
was difficult, yes, but also enormous fun. I liked not having to plod doggedly
from 1950 to 1951 to 1952 and so forth, and I particularly enjoyed imagining
the '40s.
What would you most like your readers to get out of this novel?
I always hope that readers will feel they are actually living, for a while,
the lives I am describing. For me, that has been my greatest joy in reading,
and I would love to pass that joy on to other people.
Towards the end of the novel Pauline describes her theory about dreaming
of undiscovered rooms in the house, I have that dream all the time but wasn't
aware it was so commonplace! Was this based upon a dream that you yourself have?
Yes, I have had that dream, and I know so many others who have had it, always
with one of the two reactions that Pauline describes. I really have no idea
what those reactions signify, although it's fun to speculate.
The reader is made aware of Pauline's death through George's conversation
with Lindy, why did you decide, after following Pauline so closely in the preceding
chapters to inform the reader of her demise in such an indirect way?
I wanted her death to announce itself as death so often does in real life--unexpectedly,
when we were all looking in the other direction.
Our reading group have read all of your books and loved every one! Do you
have any recommendations of other books we should add to our list?
I've just read the most wonderful novel, several years old now, about a man
living all his life alone in a small town alongside a river: Jayber Crow,
by Wendell Berry. The central character's firm roots in one beloved place sent
me back to another book I've admired for years--G.B. Edwards's The Book of
Ebenezer LePage, about a man's long life on the isle of Guernsey.
Do your own experiences ever influence your work? If so how did they impact
upon your writing of The Amateur Marriage?
I don't ever put my own experiences into my books, because my books are my
alternate, dream lives, and I want them to be completely different from my real
life.
STARTING POINTS FOR YOUR DISCUSSION
- Does the author present us with a more positive view of Michael or Pauline?
Tyler has organised the narrative so the reader is able to see the story from
both characters perspectives, do you think it's true to say that the reader
is more inclined to sympathise with the character who has the existing narrative
point of view?
-
How does the presence of Michael's mother, Mrs Anton, affect Pauline and
Michael's marriage? Would you agree that while she is alive Michael is more
concerned with his mother and her needs than he is with Pauline?
-
Pauline's presence in the story is framed by two accidents, what does this
add to the structure of the novel? The reader only learns of Pauline's death
when George informs Lindy of the accident "Now, as for Mom, well…
Mom, um, in fact, she died", discuss the effect the indirectness of
this discovery has on the reader.
-
Compare Pauline and Anna's characters, how is Michael's relationship with
Anna different from his first marriage?
-
Examine the chronological organisation of the novel. After each chapter
there is a substantial jump in time before the next begins, do you think
this depiction of the flow of time adds to the readers enjoyment of the
story?
-
How well do you think the author portrays the reappearance of Lindy? Were
you expecting her to come back into the story? Do you think her return was
necessary to achieve a satisfying end to the novel?
OTHER BOOKS BY ANNE TYLER
A Trick of the Light (1984)
The Girl at the Lion d'Or (1989)
A Fool's Alphabet (1992)
The Fatal Englishman (1996)
On Green Dolphin Street (2001)
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING
Regeneration ~ Pat Barker
The Eye in the Door ~ Pat Barker
The Ghost Road ~ Pat Barker
Madame Bovary ~ Gustave Flaubert
The French Lieutenant's Woman ~ John Fowles
All Quiet on the Western Front ~ Eric Maria Remarque
Penguin Book of First World War Prose ~ John Glover and Jon Silkin, ed.
Oxford Book of War Poetry ~ Jon Stallworthy
Before She Met Me ~ Julian Barnes
Talking it Over ~ Julian Barnes
Dangerous Liaisons ~ Jean De Laclos
The Red and the Black ~ Stendhal
The Seven Sisters ~ Margaret Drabble
Ladder of Years ~ Anne Tyler
ADDITIONAL ONLINE RESOURCES
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