ABOUT THE BOOK

Macon Leary hates travelling and writes guide books for these businessmen who feel the same. The ‘Accidental Tourist’ series tells them how to travel in such a way that they will feel that they have never left home. Macon however, finds himself unable to provide a guidebook for his soul – he fails to save his marriage and cannot come to terms with the random, senseless death of his son. His answer is to retreat into a downward spiral of complex rituals and habits that threaten to take over his life. Two random incidents that leave Macon with a broken leg and a need to get his dog trained become a potential turning point in his life, but the question is whether Macon’s retreat into the comfortable and habit and conformity has gone to far to allow him to grab the moment and take his life down another unknown route.

‘My favourite writer, and the best line-and-length
 novelist in the world, is Anne Tyler, the Americna author of 
The Accidental Tourist and Saint Maybe…
 Brilliant, funny, sad and senstive’
 Nick Hornby, Author of High Fidelity and How To Be Good

‘Anne Tyler gets better with every book,
 and this one is a triumph – funny,
 profound, sad and ultimately reassuring.’
 Sunday Telegraph

 ‘Now poignant, now funny… Anne Tyler is brilliant’
 New York Times Book Review

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but grew up in North Carolina, as the daughter of an industrial chemist and a social worker. The family lived among various Quaker communities in the rural south before settling in Raleigh, North Carolina. These years formed background for her Southern literary flavour, which is seen in the settings of her fiction.

At the age of 19 Tyler graduated from Duke University, North Carolina, where she twice won the Anne Flexner Award for creative writing She did post-graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University before settling in Baltimore, where she has lived for much of her adult life, If Morning Ever Comes in 1964 and became a full-time writer in 1967. She is the author of 14 novels of which The Accidental Tourist won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1986 and was made into a film starring William Hurt and Kathleen Turner in 1988, and Breathing Lessons was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. The Amateur Marriage was published in 2004.

Anne Tyler was nominated by Roddy Doyle and Nick Hornby in The Sunday Times survey in 1994 as ‘the greatest living novelists writing in English.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

www.realsimple.com

When your children were young, did you ever worry that being a mother and a writer were mutually exclusive?

I learned early that I cared much, much more about my family than my writing. If a novel wasn't going well, I could still enjoy my children, but if one of my children was sick, I couldn't even remember what the novel was about. In that way, I've been lucky. I didn't have to deal with any serious inner conflicts.

What kind of writing schedule, if any, do you follow?

I try to write every weekday, starting fairly early in the morning and stopping in the afternoon, because my mind always seems to "click off" later in the day. I believe in the importance of routine - going into the same room every morning, sitting in the same place on the couch, hearing the same birds in the tree outside my window.

Do you keep any kind of journal when writing a novel? 

No, no journal. It seems to me that writing about writing would weaken any impetus to undertake the writing itself. I do have a cardboard box filled with three-by-five index cards on which I've very briefly - telegraphically - jotted down random daydreams, or phrases that intrigue me, or thoughts about "what if." What if such-and-such a type of character had to deal with such-and-such a situation? That sort of thing.

I write with a Parker 75 fountain pen, a No. 62 nib (I live in fear they'll be discontinued), and black ink on unlined paper. I rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, and then put what I've written into a computer. But I rewrite it all over again in longhand at the end because the slow pace of longhand and the silence (no clicking of keys) make it easier for me to catch false notes.

How does Baltimore nourish you as a writer?

Baltimore is so much its very own self, with its own language and style and way of looking at things, that a novel set there just seems automatically to develop extra layers. It's a wonderful gift for a writer. I can't imagine living anywhere else.

Which of your novels was the most difficult to write? Which experience was the most pleasurable? Is there an early work you still feel especially proud of?

I always think the most recent book was the most difficult. Certainly the most pleasurable was Searching for Caleb. Writing that was like attending a long party. And the book I'm proudest of is Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, because it's the one that most closely resembles my original vision of it.

What happens after you finish a novel? Is it difficult to let go of certain stories or characters?

After I send a manuscript off to my agent, I always picture my central characters riding the train alone to New York City, looking hopeful and a little scared, and I feel very protective of them. If my agent calls later to say he likes the book, I think, Well, bless their hearts, they made it after all! And then I more or less forget them.

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STARTING POINTS FOR YOUR DISCUSSION

1. Macon is seen as the focus for habit in The Accidental Tourist, but is any one character immune to a system?  Examine the various forms of habit that permeate the novel – do they oppress or give comfort?
2. The Leary ‘children’ have always seemed old.What do you feel Tyler is exploring through their close-knit set-up?
3. Houses and homes are very important agents of meaning in the novel. Think about the various characters, their living circumstances and how they offer insights into their worlds.Are these houses homes or prisons?
4. Alexander could be seen as functioning as a small Macon, a blank slate on which Macon can put right his own mistakes rather than a surrogate Ethan.Does this relationship show that Macon can be an instigator of change rather than a sponge of it, or is this another of his mistakes?
5. Muriel is the antithesis of Macon’s wife, Sarah and embodies many of the elements of life that Macon finds difficult to deal with.What is that draws him to Muriel, in spite of their differences, and eventually makes him choose her over Sarah?
6. Consider the role of Edward in Macon’s life. Does Edward help make explicit all that Macon burrows?
7. Macon’s moves from a position of seeing blue jeans as illogical to seeing them as a start to fitting in and moving on. Alexander is able to gain his freedom through the conformity of jeans and T-shirt.At the same time, Muriel has always spurned conformity through her outlandish dress sense and escape from an unhappy marriage. How is conformity challenged in the novel? Is conformity shown to be acceptable if it can bring happiness?

OTHER BOOKS BY ANNE TYLER

If Morning Ever Comes
The Tin Can Tree
A Slipping-Down Life
If Morning Ever Comes
The Tin Can Tree
A Slipping-Down Life
The Clock Winder
Celestial Navigation
Searching for Caleb
Earthly Possessions
Morgan’s Passing
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Breathing Lessons
Saint Maybe
Ladder of Years
A Patchwork Planet
Back When We Were Grown Ups
The Amateur Marriage

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING

Independence Day ~ Richard Ford
Breakfast of Champions ~ Kurt Vonnegut
Where I’m Calling From ~ Raymond Carver
The Great American Novel ~ Philip Roth
Hard Times ~ Charles Dickens

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