by Anne Tyler
First published 2012
Morgan Gower sports a wild beard and collects strange costumes and hats. He spends his days pretending to be someone else entirely. A jockey one day, an art dealer the next, a shipping tycoon after that. His large family of daughters find him increasingly embarrassing as they grow up and get married. Morgan feels pushed to the margins of their lives. Then he meets Emily and Leon Meredith in a moment of high drama. This encounter sparks something powerful in Morgan. He becomes fixated on the young couple in ways that will change all their lives. Tyler crafts a story about a man who cannot accept the person he actually is. Morgan's elaborate performances become his way of escaping a reality that feels too small for him.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, adult-fiction
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-study, fish-out-of-water, unreliable-narrator
288 pages · Kindle Edition · Vintage Digital