by Anne Tyler
First published 2022
Mercy Garrett would rather paint than keep house for her husband Robin. Their teenage daughters Alice and Lily share nothing but parents. Their youngest son David already plots his escape from family life. In the summer of 1959, the Garretts venture out for their first and only family vacation together. They rarely leave home, yet they have never felt more distant from each other. Mercy struggles between her artistic dreams and domestic duties. Alice remains the steady daughter while Lily chases boys. David withdraws for reasons no one grasps. Across the following decades, their choices echo through subsequent generations in ways both subtle and unmistakable. Tyler traces how family members shape each other despite their attempts to break free, revealing the small kindnesses and casual cruelties that bind people together.
Genres: literary-fiction, domestic-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: France
Period: 1959
244 pages · Hardcover · Knopf