Anne Tyler: Ladder of Years (1995)

When Delia and Joel are talking about the absence of words to express subtleties, Joel regrets that there's only one word to describe the various hues of freckles. He is of course expressing his love, his desire, for Delia, but in a tangential, restrained, although highly eloquent manner. This is typical of the whispered art of Anne Tyler: there is never any mention of penises or clitorides, vaginas, or ever nipples.

Sometimes, however, her restraint, her deliberate avoidance of saying things seems to fall flat, becomes unrealistic, particularly with her characters' use of interjections: expressions of disgust, anger, frustration, are always covered over by words like 'Cripes!', 'Hot dog!', 'Jiminy!', 'Gosh!', 'Sheesh!', 'Compost happens!', etc, all quaint euphemisms that have a hollow ring, that in no way match the gravity of the situation. Yes, this is (most probably) the early nineties and still Dr Samuel Grinstead rebukes his son for saying (gasp!) 'for Christ's sake!'. Compared with movie language (and we've moved light years away from the shock of the word 'damn' in Gone with the Wind), Tyler's novels are stuck in a distant past as far as interjections go. (Perversely, this can be as charming as it is annoying.)

And yet she's no wilting, schoolmarmish writer, she can be (and indeed often is) caustic, and her characters can lash out at the aural anesthesia of smalltalk or the safety valves of religion that automatically annihilate any attempts to delve into troubling, complex thoughts by their soothing, readymade, robotic reflexes.

Living with Sam and the kids, Delia sometimes felt 'like a tiny gnat, whirring around her family's edges', and certainly the bizarre newspaper article that announces her disappearance and that serves as an introduction to Anne Tyler's Ladder of Years strongly indicates someone almost incidental to the lives of her family: neither her husband nor her children can decide for sure on her height, weight, the color of her eyes or what she was wearing. So who can be surprised that, without a word, she has walked out of their lives. After about a year she walks into the life of Joel and his son Noah, but then in a few months walks out again, back into Sam's. I suppose I saw the end coming, but I can't say I'm too happy with it: so like other characters of Tyler's, was Delia trying on another life, or stepping outside of time a while? Sheesh!

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Anne Tyler: If Morning Ever Comes (1964)
Anne Tyler: The Tin Can Tree (1965)
Anne Tyler: The Clock Winder (1972)
Anne Tyler: Celestial Navigation (1974)
Anne Tyler: Earthly Possessions (1977)
Anne Tyler: Morgan's Passing (1980)
Anne Tyler: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982)
Anne Tyler: The Accidental Tourist (1985)
Anne Tyler: Breathing Lessons (1988)
Anne Tyler: A Patchwork Planet (1998)
Anne Tyler: Back When We Were Grownups (2001)
Anne Tyler: The Amateur Marriage (2004)
Anne Tyler: Digging to America (2006)
Anne Tyler: Noah's Compass (2009)
Anne Tyler: The Beginner's Goodbye (2012)
Anne Tyler: A Spool of Blue Thread (2015)