Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler | Introduction & Overview

Breathing Lessons Introduction

A highly regarded author of short stories and novels, Anne Tyler is known for her fiction that explores the vicissitudes of human existence in late twentieth-century America. Tyler's readers readily identify with her complex characters and see their own experiences mirrored in her fiction. She often makes her readers laugh out loud, but she also makes them think—about life, loss, family, death, and all aspects of the human condition.

Breathing Lessons is Tyler's eleventh book. Winner of the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for fiction as well as Time magazine's Book of the Year, it is the story of the "run-of-the-mill marriage" of Ira and Maggie Moran. The story explores the joys and tabulations of marriage, as Maggie and Ira travel from Baltimore to a funeral and home in one day.