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Title details for French Braid by Anne Tyler - Available

French Braid

A novel

by Anne Tyler
Kimberly Farr
Audiobook
2 of 4 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
2 of 4 copies available
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Spool of Blue Thread—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.
“A quietly subversive novel, tackling fundamental assumptions about womanhood, motherhood and female aging.” —The New York Times Book Review
The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever leave home, 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. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family's orbit, for reasons none of them understand. Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts' influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation.
Full 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.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 22, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593551431
      • File size: 261198 KB
      • Duration: 09:04:09

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 17, 2022
      Tyler (Redhead by the Side of the Road) returns with a dry and well-crafted look at a family that inexplicably comes apart over several decades. Serena Drew, a 20-something Baltimore grad student traveling with her boyfriend, James, thinks she recognizes her cousin, Nicholas Garrett, in the crowd at a Philadelphia train station in 2010, but she can’t say for sure because she hasn’t seen him for years. “You guys give a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘once removed,’ ” James says, and wonders if “some deep dark secret” might explain why Serena rarely sees her aunt Alice or her uncle David, Nicholas’s father. But the explanation, as it happens, is not so simple. This also turns out not to be Serena’s story, as Tyler leaves the young couple for late 1950s Baltimore, where Alice; Serena’s mother, Lily; and David are raised by their mismatched parents, a socially awkward plumber named Robin and begrudging housewife Mercy, who wants to be an artist. Once the parents become empty nesters, Mercy spends most of her days and nights in her neighboring studio. There are no big reveals, but Tyler’s focus on character development proves fruitful; a reunion organized by the wistful Robin in the ’90s is particularly affecting, as is a coda with David during the Covid-19 pandemic. As always, Tyler offers both comfort and surprise.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Narrator Kimberly Farr enhances Anne Tyler's evocative novel, with its delightful fly-on-the-wall conversations. Listeners meet the Garrett family of Baltimore, who take their only vacation in 1959, an event that showcases their diverse personalities. The novel concludes in the 2020s. Chapters alternate among the characters' third-person viewpoints, which Farr imbues with distinction. As their children leave home, self-centered Mercy moves into her nearby studio to paint, while remote yet loving Robin hardly notices--or is in denial. The family has little contact with each other until Robin throws a 50th anniversary party, exposing secrets and unfulfilled dreams. The conclusion is beautifully moving. This is, arguably, Tyler's best work to date, and because Farr so capably fleshes out the entire Garrett family, audio is the unquestionable choice for maximum enjoyment. S.G.B. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      June 1, 2022

      Parents Robin and Mercy and their three children, Alice, Lily, and David, seem to have very little in common. Even on the one family vacation they take in 1959, each goes their own way and pursues their own interests. As the children grow up and marry, they have children who display quirks, habits, and eccentricities similar to those of their grandparents. David, on looking through an old photo album with his son and grandson, realizes that family ties endure and continue to influence, even when the individual members of the family can no longer be identified. Tyler (Redhead by the Side of the Road) likens families to a French braid--for a while they are woven together in a unit, and even after the braid has come undone, the ripples created by the braid remain. The loose ties that hold this multigenerational family together last long after their lives have been unbraided. Narrator Kimberly Farr expertly presents the different personalities of the family members. She successfully delivers the joys and the sorrows, the secrets and the truths that the story holds. VERDICT Highly recommended; add to all collections.--Joanna M. Burkhardt

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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