Back when We Were Grownups"Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered that she had turned into the wrong person." So Anne Tyler opens this irresistible new novel. The woman is Rebecca Davitch, a fifty-three-year-old grandmother. Is she an impostor in her own life? she asks herself. Is it indeed her own life? Or is it someone else's? On the surface, Beck, as she is known to the Davitch clan, is outgoing, joyous, a natural celebrator. Giving parties is, after all, her vocation--something she slipped into even before finishing college, when Joe Davitch spotted her at an engagement party in his family's crumbling nineteenth-century Baltimore row house, where giving parties was the family business. What caught his fancy was that she seemed to be having such a wonderful time. Soon this large-spirited older man, a divorce with three little girls, swept her into his orbit, and before she knew it she was embracing his extended family plus a child of their own, and hosting endless parties in the ornate, high-ceilinged rooms of The Open Arms. Now, some thirty years later, after presiding over a disastrous family picnic, Rebecca is caught un-awares by the question of who she really is. How she answers it--how she tries to recover her girlhood self, that dignified grownup she had once been--is the story told in this beguiling, funny, and deeply moving novel. As always with Anne Tyler's novels, once we enter her world it is hard to leave. But in Back When We Were Grownups she so sharpens our perceptions and awakens so many untapped feelings that we come away not only refreshed and delighted, but also infinitely wiser. "From the Hardcover edition. |
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ACCIDENTAL TOURIST Alice Farmer Allenby Anne Tyler Aunt Ida Aunt Joyce baby ballpoint pen Barry Beatrice Beck Biddy birthday BREATHING LESSONS called chair Church Valley dining room dinner Dixon door dress eyes feel felt Foo's front Froot Loop gave gazed George Eliot girls glass guess guests hair Hakim hand head heard Jeep Joe's Joey kind kitchen knew Lateesha laugh look Macadam married Min Foo Mother Davitch never nice night NoNo NoNo's okay once Open Arms parlor party Patch Peter playing Band Poppy Poppy's Rebecca asked Rebecca told Rebecca's daughter Rebecca's mother remember Scrabble seemed shoes skirt SLIPPING-DOWN smile sorry sort started stood sure talk telephone tell thanks thing Tina toast told Rebecca took Troy turned voice waiting walked watching wearing wedding woman wonderful