redhead by the side of the road by anne tyler

No long-term reader of Tyler will be surprised to hear that all of this careful, oddball living, this unswerving rigidity, is about to be thrown furiously and entertainingly off balance. Nevertheless, as he regularly reassures himself, he has “no reason to feel unhappy”. Even his relationship with his “restful to look at” teacher girlfriend has, by his own admission, “solidified”.

He lives rent-free, alone, keeps to himself and sticks to a routine “etched in stone”: Friday is vacuuming day, Monday floor-mopping, and so on. So his second day-job is as apartment caretaker and general odd-job man. Micah knows that his modestly selling manual, the delectably titled “First, Plug It In”, is unlikely to make him rich. After he walked away from an IT startup, Micah now runs Tech Hermit and runs around the neighbourhood fixing computer problems for old ladies who – and you’d be right to bet Tyler mines this for full comic potential – don’t know what a modem is or does. Aren’t some of her most memorable and satisfying novels those where she plumbs the male human heart and psyche with all of her customary tenderness and honesty? Who can forget Saint Maybe ’s self-lacerating Ian Bedloe, or the poles-apart brothers from Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant ? Or – probably my favourite – the heart-wrenched Macon Leary in The Accidental Tourist?Īnd now – chiming eerily at least in name with Macon – here’s fortysomething Micah, blue-eyed, with “not-so-good posture”, clad in jeans and a “partially erased looking” brown leather jacket. But reading this enjoyable novel – her 23rd – it struck me that there can’t be a writer, of either gender, who creates more engaging or multi-dimensional men. A nne Tyler has won so many plaudits over the past 50 odd years that it’s hard to think of new superlatives to add.

Redhead by the side of the road by anne tyler