- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Chatto & Windus (1 Jun 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 070117286X
- ISBN-13: 978-0701172862
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.6 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 655,872 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Back When We Were Grownups
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The first sentence of Anne Tyler's 15th novel, Back When We Were Grown Ups, sounds like something out of a fairy tale: "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person." Alas, this discovery has less to do with magic than with a late-middle-age crisis, which is visited upon Rebecca Davitch in the opening pages of the book. At 53, this perpetually agreeable widow is "wide and soft and dimpled, with two short wings of dry, fair hair flaring almost horizontally from a centre part". Given her role as the matriarch of a large family--and the proprietress of a party-and-catering concern, The Open Arms--Rebecca is both personally and professionally inclined towards jollity. But at an engagement bash for one of her multiple stepdaughters, she finds herself questioning everything about her life: "How on earth did I get like this? How? How did I ever become this person who's not really me?"
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
Book Description
One of five Anne Tyler novels reissued in stunning new jackets
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Anne Tyler has an amazing, almost unique, ability to write about banal, everyday life whilst remaining hugely entertaining. This book is driven almost exclusively by the characters rather than the plot, yet is not stale or tedious for a second. The comings and goings of the extended family and their relationships with one another are a constant source of amusement, entertainment and concern in perfectly measured doses.
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.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Anne Tyler has the rare ability to map both the deepest and most fleeting cares of the human heart, without ever descending into mawkishness. She is incapable of writing a line that doesn't ring with emotional truth. This novel's protagonists are ageing with their author- the fulcrum around which the entire bickering cast revolves is Rebecca, a 53 year old widow, who has spent thirty years raising and supporting her dead husband's children, and mopping up after the 99 year old uncle living in the attic. Their casual acceptance of her role has finally led her to question whether she is, in fact, living the life she was destined to live which, she believes is one of bookish restraint, rather than the boisterous, party-throwing frenzy it has become. Her quest for the truth about herself brings her back to the boyfriend she rejected in high school, and forces her to wonder whether, as Uncle Poppy says, "your true life is the one you're living." I couldn't feel empathy with anyone who didn't respond to Anne Tyler's masterly writing, in this case,crafted with the art that conceals art, into an eminently readable, infinitely wise meditation on ageing, family, and self-awareness. All this, and funny too.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I hadn't read anything by Anne Tyler before. To be honest, I hadn't even heard of her and was really surprised to see, in the biog, that Nick Hornby had named her the 'greatest living novelist writing in English'. Having read "Back When We Were Grownups", appealing though it is, I have to say I'm still surprised !
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 !
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Tedious saga
This book reminded me of round-robins I receive every year from a distant relative in Canada. I am always astounded that she probably has the belief that anyone would be interested... Read more
Published 12 days ago by Gaynor
Anyone stuck in a rut?
How fickle indeed is fate, how easily we all could have taken another path, missed meeting a man by looking away for five seconds, stayed in, instead of going out one night.. Read more
Published 9 months ago by smartesthorse
A small masterpiece
This book is a small masterpiece, a master-class in the art of writing. That is, if you can get through the following:
Rebecca has three step-daughters, Biddy, a... Read more
Rebecca has three step-daughters, Biddy, a... Read more
Published 16 months ago by P. Bird
Gorgeous
Rebecca Davitch is a middle-aged widow sharing her life with an elderly uncle, a scramble of step-children and a chaotic range of in-laws, children and relatives. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Book 1981
Anne Tyler is a genius
I just love anne tyler. She's so unpretentious. The dialogue in her stories is so spot on and entertaining. Read more
Published on 5 April 2007 by Marianne
Pseudo american literature
The underlying theme for this book is perhaps whats best about it, that we often turn out to be some one different than what we think we want to be is ok, but the book is slow and... Read more
Published on 1 Jun 2006 by L. Barrow
Disappointing
I'm sorry, but this book was disappointing.
There were some interesting relationship studies, particularly the central one between Rebecca and Will, but that finished... Read more
There were some interesting relationship studies, particularly the central one between Rebecca and Will, but that finished... Read more
Published on 21 April 2006 by DubaiReader
Not one of Anne Tyler's best
I, too, am an avid fan of Anne Tyler's books having read nearly all of them now. The quality of her later work is consistently excellent - until this one, which I feel lacks... Read more
Published on 13 Aug 2002
Quality as usual from Anne Tyler but annoying names
I love Anne Tyler's work to bits and have every single one of her novels, and will keep buying them as long as she writes them. Read more
Published on 14 Jan 2002 by Kendall
a return to form
this book is a return to the high standard set by the author's earlier books. Once you are over the 1st chapter or 2, and have worked out who is who, it is a wonderful read, warm,... Read more
Published on 21 Dec 2001
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