Biography Essay

"The real heroes to me in my books," Anne Tyler told interviewer Marguerite Michaels, "are first the ones who manage to endure and second the ones who somehow are able to grant other people the privacy of the space around them and yet still produce some warmth." Tyler herself has managed to endure—fourteen novels in thirty-five yearswhile demanding space around her (she steadfastly refuses teaching appointments, lectures, readings, and most interviews) and still producing a great deal of warmth. Her frequently appealing, often shy characters have endured in the minds of her readers as well, creating an enthusiastic following for this very private Baltimore writer.

Daughter of chemist Lloyd Parry Tyler and social worker Phyllis Mahon Tyler, Anne Tyler was born on 25 October 1941 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. From Minneapolis the family moved to Pennsylvania, Chicago, Duluth, Celo (a collective, experimental community in the North Carolina...