SOURCE: Simon, Linda. Review of A Patchwork Planet, by Anne Tyler. World and I 13, no. 8 (August 1998): 274-77.

In the following review, Simon praises Tyler's characterization of Barnaby, the protagonist of The Patchwork Planet.

In her fourteenth novel [A Patchwork Planet], Anne Tyler illuminates heroism in the small gestures of ordinary life.

In an interview early in her career, Anne Tyler admitted that one of her motivations for writing fiction was a desire to inhabit other characters, to live other lives. Asked what kind of work she would do if she were not a writer, Tyler revealed an attraction “toward manual labor, mainly. I'd like to run a repair shop for toys. I'd like to start an herb farm. And it wouldn't be so bad working for one of those companies that takes on odd jobs for old ladies—driving them to their palmists, collecting their ground-rents for them...