Review: The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the kind of book that makes me glad to be undertaking this "Year of Reading Women" project. In our now-centric culture, where the laws of hype and marketing would have us believe the Next Thing is always the Best Thing Ever (corollary: there's always a New Next Thing), there's rarely a time when I feel compelled to look backwards to a work of fiction from 1985. Even an acclaimed bestseller that got made into a movie. In some ways reading The Accidental Tourist in 2013 is a small metaphor about the pleasures and benefits of taking a break from sprinting endlessly forward, allowing a brief moment to reflect back a bit.

Despite the fame of this book (& attendant movie) I knew literally nothing about it. Same for Anne Tyler, who I've obviously heard of, but who I'd never read, or formed any kind of opinion about. Turns out she's exactly the kind of author I'm happy to have finally read, at the recommendation of a friend who saw my "YoRW" project.

"The Accidental Tourist" tells the story of Macon Leary, a staid forty-something travel writer living in Baltimore whose marriage is falling apart following a tragedy. Saying anything further than that about the plot or the characters would be a disservice to the book, I think. I enjoyed going into the novel with zero expectations. Suffice it to say that all the characters are neatly and expertly drawn, in the wonderful space in between comedy and tragedy. Not quite over-the-top enough to be parody, but not so sad and serious that things fall completely into woe.

I enjoyed this book through and through; it features great writing full of pathos; deep emotion; deft humor and evocative characterizations. I thank Katherine Gotsick for the suggestion and look forward to more Anne Tyler, within or without specific reading projects!


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