The French Braid
Reading another Anne Tyler novel is like beginning another season of PBS's All Creatures Great and Small, (which happened last night) . It's a welcoming acknowledgment that you're settling into something touching, knowing and insightful. This novel, like so many of hers, takes place in Baltimore and centers around a single family. Really most of Tyler's writing can be summed up with this passage:
"Oh, a French braid,” Greta said. “That’s it. And then when she undid them, her hair would still be in ripples, little leftover squiggles, for hours and hours afterward.” “Yes…” “Well,” David said, “that’s how families work, too. You think you’re free of them, but you’re never really free; the ripples are crimped in forever.”
The Garrett family, Robin and Mercy, have three children and live comfortable lives in Baltimore. Tyler provides glimpses of the various stages, sometimes jumping years ahead. At a train station two cousins run into each other, a family trip to Deep Creek, a child's unexpected pregnancy, a grandmother and granddaughter trip to NYC. Sometimes I wish there were more to learn about these people, but Tyler selects the vignettes that perfectly helps the reader see the strands of a family, both flawed and memorable. Her writing is straightforward and peppered with wonderful observations. What can I say; it always a pleasure to return to her world.

Lines:

“Oh, I know how uppity you Baltimoreans are,” James said. “I know how you guys sort people out by what high school they attended. And then marry someone from your high school in the end.”

Alice often liked to imagine that a book was being written about her life. A narrator with an authoritative male voice was describing her every act.

Because if you’re going to do someone a favor, her father used to tell her, you might as well do it graciously.

She knew her family made fun of him. Or found him amusing, at least. She knew he came across as stuffy and too earnest, prone to telling the entire plots of movies and to making a low, place-holding humming noise any time he paused to search for words; and he was going to have one of those tacked-on-looking bellies if he didn’t cut back on those biscuits.

“I just want to warn you,” she’d said, “that the quality you marry a person for will end up being what you hate them for, most often.”

Oh, the lengths this family would go to so as not to spoil the picture of how things were supposed to be!

So maybe parenthood was meant to be educational, Robin thought—a lesson for the parents on totally other styles of being.

She figured that when she turned thirteen, she’d campaign for a whole row of piercings running up the outer rim of each ear. Then she’d fit a tiny hoop into each and every one, so that the edges of her ears would resemble the spine of a spiral notebook.

It was decided that Benny would sleep in Nicholas’s old room, which still had glow-in-the-dark constellations plastered to the ceiling, and Nicholas in Emily’s room.

“So, this is how it works,” she said. “This is what families do for each other—hide a few uncomfortable truths, allow a few self-deceptions. Little kindnesses.”

He could still catch a trace of Benny’s little-boy scent, salty but sweet, like clean sweat. ( )

After opening and abandoning several books, I settled into French Braid by Anne Tyler for my next December TBR shelf read. It was just what I needed: an ordinary family and yet magnificently messed up. It was cozy and calming and comic and interesting and surprising all at once.

We are formed–or deformed– by our families. The Garrett family is no different. They are such a fractured family that in the opening scene, a woman isn’t sure if a man she sees is her cousin. It had been years since they had last seen each other at their grandfather’s funeral. Serena’s boyfriend has a close family, but she realizes that hers “never seemed to take” when they did gather at weddings or funerals.

Then, Tyler takes us back to 1959 and the one and only Garrett family vacation to a cabin at lake, introducing us to parents Robin and Mercy and their three children, teenagers Alice and Lily, and the youngest, David. It isn’t really a family vacation, the kind where everyone enjoys time together. Lily finds a boy and disappears all day. David is afraid of the water and feels judged by his father. Mercy paints, unconcerned that Lily is hanging with an older boy. Robin is unconcerned by Lily’s broken heart. And we understand the basic disconnection of these people.

These people never talk about their problems with each other. They just drift apart into their own lives. When Mercy moves out, little by little, into an art studio apartment, her separation from her husband is never recognized. Her own children don’t even think of it as a separation.

Tyler’s understated style is not for everyone. There are no horrendous events or compulsive story arcs. Just life, like yours and mine, and a shared recognition. And perhaps, some healing knowing all families leave their indelible marks. ( )

This is a story of the multi-generational Garrett family, centered in or near Baltimore and beginning roughly in the 1950's and carrying up through the years of the Pandemic.

I know...not a lot of plot description there, but that kind of reflects this book. Not a lot happens. It's a fairly well-written story of a family that just doesn't connect well with one another, and though I appreciated the real quality of it, I found that it didn't seem to go anywhere and was just sad. There were a few moments of subtle humor that were enjoyable, but often I just didn't feel much for this family or this story. I also didn't feel that the audiobook reader "fit" this story well, and that may have had an impact on my overall opinion of this one. ( )

A gently humorous, deftly observed novel about the dynamics of one family in Baltimore over three generations. This isn't the kind of book where much happens—it's more a series of vignettes—but Anne Tyler still brings in narrative tension through some of the strains that develop in the family over the years: ones which seem almost inexplicable and yet also ring true. (I definitely gave a little 'oof' of recognition more than once at interactions which reminded me of some of my own family members.) I don't think there's much heft to French Braid, but Tyler's dialogue is pleasurable and her characters vivid. ( )

This is the first book this year that I have really loved. I kept picking it up - every chance I got to find out more about this family. It is my very favorite kind of book. A slow, quiet family saga. It was wrtten so beautifully by Tyler. She remains one of my very favorite authors. ( )