Books like The Amateur Marriage

Anne Tyler would laugh, I'm sure, if she read these different reactions to this book. For isn't this her point in so many of her novels? How different we all are and how easily we misunderstand each other? How one person can hate what another loves so passionately? How easy it is to miss the point, get the wrong end of the stick, fail to see what's under your very nose?The genius of Tyler is in her understated approach to the great themes of life. Behind the seemingly trivial details of the everyday lives of her ordinary characters, we are shown the pathos and suffering that inevitably faces us all. The passing of time. The wasted opportunities. The clarity of hindsight. Death. Loss. Regret. Disappointment. And behind all those, the persistent tug of the present and the pull of everyday concerns, and the solace that they ultimately provide.Tyler is one of the few novelists who can break your heart in a line. The closing paragraph of The Amateur Marriage had me in tears, and probably will again whenever I think of it.