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Amazon.co.uk Review
She spends the rest of the novel attempting to answer these questions--and trying to resurrect her former, extinguished self. Should she take up the research she began back in college, on Robert E Lee's motivation for joining the Confederacy? More to the point, should she take up with her college sweetheart who's now divorced and living within easy striking range? None of these quick fixes pans out exactly as Rebecca imagines. What she emerges with is a kind of radiant resignation, best expressed by 100-year-old Poppy on his birthday: "There is no true life. Your true life is the one you end up with, whatever it may be." A tautology perhaps but Tyler's delicate, densely populated novel makes it stick.
Yes, Poppy. There are also characters named NoNo, Biddy, and Min Foo--the sort of saccharine roll-call that might send many a reader scampering in the opposite direction. But Tyler knows exactly now to mingle the sweet with the sour and in Back When We Were Grownups she manages this balancing act like the old pro she is. Even the familiar backdrop--shabby-genteel Baltimore, which resembles a virtual game preserve of Tylerian eccentrics--seems freshly observed. Can any human being really resist this novel? It is, to quote Rebecca, "a report on what it was like to be alive," and an appealingly accurate one to boot. --James Marcus, Amazon.com --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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I read this whole book in one day as I couldn't bear to tear myself away from the inexplicably compelling story. I was left with a warm feeling of contentment. If I had to liken this book to a food, I would describe it as warm apple pie with brown sugar. Appealing, homely and comforting, yet naughty enough to keep you excited.
If you've never read Anne Tyler before, this is a perfect introduction.
The novel focuses on the relationships of the central character Rebecca, primarily those with her ex-husband's family. It takes place during a slice of time defined by her (seemingly sudden) need to question the person she has become and to rediscover the self that she could have been. (She feels that her 'lost real life' would have been altogether more serious, hence the title.) It is rather satisfying that she concludes that she has the greatest fulfilment in her 'fake real life', where the more obviously dramatic plotline would have been for her to tear it all up and start again.
Rebecca's relationships with the other characters can also be seen as a metaphor for family life (and relationships) in the western world (well, suburban Baltimore at least). Basically, the Davitch family, into which she married 30 years ago, is broken and is only held together by Rebecca, an 'outsider'. She starts by saving a boy from drowning and continues to perform minor heroics from there, receiving little or no recognition in the process. (The boy is her stepdaughter's dysfunctional stepson - see the 'broken' theme ?) For her part, she has only a functional relationship with her mother and finds greater satisfaction in her dealings with workmen and the host of strangers for whom she hosts parties. Ironically, her relationship with her only daughter is at least as wearisome as that with most of her family-by-marriage. Also, I may just have been watching too much East Enders, but is it significant that the women are generally mean-minded and the men self-absorbed ?
On the surface, the story seems quite homely, almost 'mumsey', in a way in which I would normally find very trying. Yet somehow, I found this difficult to put down. Tyler writes in a very easy style that stirs rather than shakes the emotions and which is very unpretentious and confident - where so many authors and their works are so self-important, that's actually very welcome !
Rebecca has three step-daughters, Biddy, a... Read more
There were some interesting relationship studies, particularly the central one between Rebecca and Will, but that finished... Read more
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