In this excerpt, Beverly examines Tyler's characterization in Breathing Lessons.
Walking into the wide but comfortable expanse of an Anne Tyler novel can feel like settling down into a porch swing on a late summer evening. The neighbors on the porch next door begin to talk as the swing easily glides....
Imagine the ease of sitting in a porch swing and hearing not only the neighbors' conversation, but overhearing the minds of the neighbors as they sit in silence, unable or unwilling to speak, yearning to make sense of their particular lot.
The minds we overhear in Tyler's eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons, belong to Maggie and Ira Moran on a late summer Saturday, as the middle-aged couple drive out of their ordinary suburban Baltimore life to the funeral of Maggie's best friend's husband in.....
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