SOURCE: "Bright Books of Life: The Black Norm in Anne Tyler's Novels," in The Southern Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 1, Fall, 1992, pp. 7-13.

In the following essay, Petry discusses how Tyler uses black characters as repositories of wisdom and knowledge in her novels.

To be frank, black characters do not loom large in the twelve novels of contemporary Baltimore novelist Anne Tyler. Most of them function as domestics, such as the housekeeper Clotelia of A Slipping-Down Life or Richard the gardener in The Clock Winder; others are barely-delineated background figures, like the superstitious clients of the fortune-teller Madame Olita in Searching for Caleb or the silent, shifty-eyed gamblers frequenting the No Jive Cafe in Morgan's Passing. But even as one makes these sweeping observations, one must counter them. For if there is one insistent quality about Tyler's fictional vision, it is her humanity—a humanity that prevents her from resorting...