In 2019 I attempted to read this and couldn't make it through the first chapter. This time I found it engrossing and perceptive. Needless to say, much has happened in the years between 2017 and 2023...in the world and in my life...
Therefore, many of the events and themes resonate with me now... especially the regrets and disappointment one feels as one ages:

"It was thinking that made her nights so long. All the bad old thoughts came crowding to the front of her mind. She had lived her life wrong; she'd made a big mess of it."

"He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller."



It is definitely not a happy book, and would probably be better enjoyed by readers who have been married a long time and have ever wondered"What were the issues they'd quarreled about?" or had children tear their parent's hearts out with comments such as " 'just the five of us'; like that was something to be desired, and I'll never forget how claustrophobic that made me feel. Just the five of us in this wretched tangled knot, inward-turned, stunted, like a trapped fox chewing its own leg off."
So much for family togetherness!
But as Michael says of him and Pauline, "We did the best we could. We did our darnedest. We were just...unskilled; we never quite got the hand of things. It wasn't for lack of trying."

The family conflicts seem so familiar to a long-term marriage, and the ending is both poignant and heartbreaking. ( )

Did you get married to the human that your hormones were clamoring for? (Guilty. Resolved by divorce.) And then found out you made a mistake? At least my mistake has been a good provider. Something that should be taught starting in elementary school: a checklist to see if your friends live by mutual mores; how to choose a partner to create new humans with. Ok. On to this book.
I had so many laugh out loud moments. I don't know where the author got her material, but this was high comedy. But it was also sad. It was a portrayal of characters that is all-too realistic, and ends up creating deeply flawed, unhappy human beings because people make babies when they get married, regardless of whether they're compatible or not.
Pauline is an airhead riding the streetcar days after Pearl harbor, when she jumps off and cuts her head. Her girlfriends breathlessly bundle her into a nearby Polish grocery for a band-aid, and the owner's son cleans and bandages her cut. That was apparently enough reason for them to become boyfriend-girlfriend. The rah-rah atmosphere of neighborhood residents (and the whole country) causes the boy named Michael to enlist, and Pauline to gush over his patriotic fervor. He never makes it to the front; he is resentful and disgusted with the uncomfortable conditions and demanding physical training of bootcamp. Pauline sends him letters how she is going dancing with the local soldiers and he gets so furious that he tries to strangle his bunkmate who had an unrelenting cough, with a pillow. The cough-er returns the favor by (accidentally) shooting Michael in the ass. Michael is sent home walking with a cane. Now they marry and make three children. And the misery begins. ( )

Anne Tyler is one of a hand-full of writers who can write about the same location and the same kind of characters and never feel cliched or irrelevant. All her characters are so whole and authentic that as I read I keep thinking, "I know this person" or "OMG, that is me".

That is Tyler, in general, now for this novel specifically. Pauline and Michael (the members of the aforesaid amateur marriage) are two very flawed opposites, entangled in a death-grip and unable to communicate on any meaningful level. They cannot be happy together, but they are afraid that they will not be able to be happy apart. At some point I decided that what binds them to one another is the convenience of having someone to blame for their own shortcomings.

Underneath some rank hostility, unbelievable indifference to the other's feelings, and insurmountable differences, there is a current of honest affection that persists to the last page of the book. They have had an amateur marriage because they enter into it without any idea of what they are really committing to and they never crack the secret code that might have made it a happy one. Still, I couldn't help asking myself, aren't all marriages amateur. Who knows what they will encounter, how they will deal with each other's quirks and needs, if they can juggle the responsibilities of aging parents and children and living in a house with intimates who sometimes feel like strangers. If you haven't experienced any of that, you can count yourself lucky indeed. ( )

This is a story that portrays a couple who meet and marry at the beginning of the US entering WWII. They fall in love but they are very different from each other and it seems they are unable to grow into each other thus "amateur" marriage. They never mature. They marry, have children, and have grandchildren. It's a story of ordinary people, living ordinary lives. What Tyler does well is develop her characters. I can't say I liked any of these characters very much. They are flawed like we all are and I am sure their problems are shared by many. I enjoyed the story. Rated it 3.6 ( )

I have read many of Anne Tyler's novels. It's amazing how she can take any routine situation and create a storyline with wonderful character development. This novel starts at the beginning of WWII (1940's) and spans about one-half century. It begins with a short relationship between spirited Pauline and serious Michael, they fall in love and marry. From the beginning, they were a mismatched couple with very different personalities which put a strain on both of them and, eventually, their three children. One child as a teen ran away and that put more problems in their lives. So this novel also focuses on other family members and their relationships to the two protagonists.

Tyler manages to make the reader feel sympathetic with the characters despite their foolish behavior. She makes it easy to get inside a character's thoughts. I don't want to include spoilers but I must say I was happy with the ending. The last sentence was a tear-jerker! ( )