Anne Tyler: The Life and Books of the Most Secretive American Writer

We talk about the life and main books of the American writer and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Tyler, who has never appeared on television or gone on promotional tours, and gives interviews exclusively by e-mail.

Anne Tyler was born in 1941 in the family of a chemist and a social worker. Her parents were activists of the Quaker religious society, in whose commune Tyler lived from 6 to 11 years old. There was no school there, so instead of attending regular lessons, the girl learned to cook and carpentry, and also helped the family on the farm. Anne read everything that could be obtained in the commune, for example, she read as many as twenty-two times "Little WomenLouisa May Alcott. Finally getting into public school, the girl felt like a stranger - but it was this feeling, according to her, that helped her become a writer. In addition, here she had access to a large number of books, she now read Gabriel García Márquez, Eudora Welty and by F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was also pushed to a writing career by her literature teacher Phyllis Peacock, to whom Anne dedicated her first published book, writing: "Mrs. Peacock - for everything you have done."

After high school, Tyler dreamed of going to Swarthmore College, founded in the 19th century with the support of the Quaker community, but she won a scholarship to Duke University and, at the insistence of her parents, so that the family could save money for the education of her younger sons, she entered there. Her specialty was Russian literature, and upon graduation she additionally enrolled in the Department of Slavic Studies at Columbia University. It was at this time that she began to write her first stories and win literary awards. At the same time, the writer does not like her early work - in one of the interviews, she said that she would even burn the first stories and novels, because, in her opinion, they suffer from the underdevelopment of characters and the lack of editing.

In 1963, Tyler married Iranian Taghi Modaressi, who had emigrated from his home country to the United States for political reasons. Modaressi worked as a child psychiatrist, but he shared his wife's love of literature—two books he wrote in Persian made him a literary prize winner. Their daughters also chose a career in art, and also helped their mother: Tez, an artist and photographer, designed the cover for one of Anne's books, and Mitra, an illustrator, wrote two children's books with Tyler.

Raising her daughters, the writer left creativity for a while - but when the girls went to school, she returned to work again. According to her, this forced break only benefited her: "After the birth of children, I became deeper as a person. They may have slowed down my career, but when I started writing again, I was able to speak more confidently."

Tyler's novels written after 1970 began to be regularly shortlisted for prestigious literary awards (Bookerovskoy, Pulitzer, Women’s Prize for Fiction and others) and enjoy constant popularity among critics and colleagues. For example, John Updike, with whose works Anne's books were often compared (as well as with the works of her favorite Jane Austen), became one of her main fans.

The writer is distinguished by exceptional productivity, which is not hindered even by age - at the moment, 79-year-old Tyler has released 24 novels. At the same time, unlike many authors, she never goes on promotional tours in support of her books, does not appear on television and rarely gives interviews, preferring to do it by e-mail. For this, one of the critics aptly dubbed it "Greta Garbo from literature" (this film actress led a very introverted, absolutely not "star" lifestyle). In a 1980 essay, Tyler explained her approach this way:

"Why do people think that writers who have chosen one of the most private professions in the world know how to behave themselves in public or want to share their secrets with ladies' magazines? I feel held back only by a rigid understanding of what I want to do and what I don't want to do. I want to write books, and everything else only distracts me."

Tyler's secret of success is often called following a rather banal advice: write only about what you know well. The heroes of her novels live in the same city of Baltimore, where she lived for many years. Many of them, like the author herself, are eccentric introverts with a rich imagination and experience the same problems as she did at different stages of life. As a result, several recurring themes can be identified in the writer's texts, which, apparently, interest her most.

Midlife (and senior) crisis

One of Tyler's most famous books is "Morgan slips away" (1980). The protagonist Morgan is unhappy in his family life and at work: both seem boring to him. Therefore, he brings variety to his life, every day choosing a new extravagant costume and as if transforming into another person. Once he pretends to be a doctor, and this plays a cruel joke on him - the man has to deliver a casual acquaintance, street actress Emily Meredith. So Morgan begins to follow the Merediths, constantly thinks about Emily and tries to try on the role of her husband, the loser Leon. According to Anne, she was interested in the figure of "a pretender who can't stop and travels to other worlds."

Tyler received her main award at the moment - the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction - for the book "Breathing lessons" (1988), in which a married couple goes through a relationship crisis. The book takes place over the course of one day: spouses Ira and Maggie Moran are on their way to the funeral of their old friend. The wife of the deceased, instead of a mourning ceremony, decides to recreate the wedding day with her late husband, and among other things, shows a video chronicle of that day. Looking at the video, Maggie remembers her youth, youthful dreams and hopes. Acutely aware of the difference between the expectations and reality of her marriage, the heroine decides to fix at least someone's relationship and convinces her husband on the way home to stop by their ex-daughter-in-law Fiona to persuade her to return to their son - but, alas, she calculates in the same way as many years ago before her wedding.

In one of Tyler's recent books, "Clock Dance" (2018), we follow the heroine named Willa Drake through four stages of her life: as a child, she tragically loses her mother, in her youth she makes a choice between study and marriage, in adulthood she experiences the loss of her husband, and in old age she marries again. A random phone call changes Willa's life – she is mistakenly called and informed of an injured young woman (mistaking them for relatives), and Willa drops everything to meet Denise, who was once her son's girlfriend. According to critics, Tyler is getting a kind of coming-of-age novel - although the heroine is already 61 years old, she is used to going with the flow and agreeing to everything that fate offers her. And meeting Denise and her young daughter, who become her new family, makes her take responsibility for her decisions for the first time and understand what she really wants.

Loss of a family member

The theme of the loss of a loved one is raised in the novel "Casual tourist" (1985), the film adaptation of which received Oscar nominations. Here, the spouses Macon and Sarah Leary are trying to cope with the tragic death of their 12-year-old son (according to Tyler, she deliberately made the boy younger than her daughters were at that time, fearing to jinx them). Macon becomes obsessed with the organization of household life, strange rituals (for example, he takes a bath and washes things in it at the same time) bring him a sense of calm and help him survive grief. Her husband's new habits quietly drive Sarah crazy, and she decides to file for divorce. Soon the hero breaks his leg and comes for treatment to his parents' house, where his equally strange brothers and sister still live. But even after recovery, Macon is in no hurry to leave them, and having fallen in love with an energetic woman named Muriel, he is in no hurry to start a relationship with her, panicked by the fear of changes and repeating the mistakes of the past.

«Amateurish farewell" (2012) explores a similar problem — the loss of a spouse. It is believed that this book is one of the most personal for Tyler, since it was written after the death of her husband. In the novel, the protagonist, Aaron, loses his wife, Dorothy, in a ridiculous accident when an old tree falls on their house. To the surprise and horror of those around him, Aaron is firmly convinced that Dorothy is still there – her ghost accompanies him everywhere, and the couple have imaginary conversations. And although for some time "communication" with his wife brings relief to a man, over time he begins to think that he simply cannot come to terms with the loss.

Clash of cultures

Modern reviewers often criticize Tyler for the lack of cultural diversity in her texts, saying how many times can you write about people who are like two peas in a pod? It is indicated, for example, that Anne seems to have little interest in the social and cultural context of Baltimore - the writer Jess Rowe notes that her characters are completely unaffected by the profound changes that have taken place in the city during her long literary career. Curiously, Tyler largely agrees with these remarks. When asked what topics she would not raise, in a recent interview, the writer replied that she would not write about the life of an African-American family in Baltimore, because this is "not her place."

But one day, Tyler still turned to the topic of cultural diversity. Another of her bestsellers, "Adopting America" (2006) is based in part on her experience of family life with a person of another nationality. The book traces how two American families who adopted Korean girls at the same time change over time. Sami and Ziba Yazdan, an Iranian-born couple, prefer to raise their daughter Susan as an ordinary American — their families have been through a lot trying to assimilate, and they don't want their daughter to have to face the same problems. At the same time, Brad and Bitsy Donaldson, who have no experience in immigration, leave the girl her Korean name Jin-Ho and try to make her learn more about her native country. Thus, the question of self-identification becomes central for the book: is there a way to raise a "culturally authentic" child without relying on one's own complexes and stereotypes?

To critics' complaints about the lack of variety, Anne Tyler responds with humor: "Every time I start a new book, I think this one will definitely be different. And in the middle of the work, I realized – no, I wrote the same book again. My new novel — you won't believe it — is about a simple family from Baltimore."

Friday, September 20, 2024

Anne Tyler: The Life and Books of the Most Secretive American Writer