The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
The Leary family steps into my room as I open the pages to
catchup with the life of the author of the accidental tourist series - Macon
Leary. Anne Tyler evokes sympathy and in the same breath teases her characters
making you smile and sad at the same time. I don’t know why, but I was reminded
often of the siblings in the Glass family created by J.D.Salinger when I read
the conversations between Macon and his siblings.
I carry a book in my head all the time I am reading one so
filled with the gentle and sensitive portrayal of everyday life. I envy authors
who can let their stories strike a chord in people so far removed from the
geographical spaces in the pages.
Losing a child to a meaningless death and having a wife who
separates after long years of marriage, the story moves gently, chronicling the
life of Macon as he tries to cope with life, his job as an author of a travel
series, living with his siblings again in his childhood home with a dog and a
cat. He is a good handyman and like my husband cannot let things remain broken
and unrepaired. But watch him repair his life in his inimitable style doing
things that might seem quite crazy to others.
Without throwing in spoilers for those who will read the
book, I can assure you that while you smile at the words that fill the book,
you are going to live with it for a very long time. A movie by the same name
exists too but read the book first.
The recent Bengaluru book exhibition helped me add two more
books by the same author into my book shelf. I picked them up from a stall
selling used books. This book looked brand new and if read (?), without any
damage to pages. In a neat hand on the very first page is a challenging remark
in pencil –“Try this for a read!”
I did and I loved it!
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