One day, during a family seaside holiday, something which has already begun to fray quietly snaps. Delia simply walks off the beach, away from her husband, Sam, and her three almost grown-up children. In a nearby town, she reinvents herself as a serious and independent-minded woman without ties.
Ladder Of Years
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Her best book yet (Roddy Doyle )
Every scene breathes with intimacy. Lifelikeness almost lifts the characters off the page. Ladder of Years ruefully contemplates the unhaltable passage of time. But, scintillating with joie de vivre, it also offers an intensely appealing way of passing it (Sunday Times )
Anne Tyler's novels have three qualities that make them special: they are funny, they are sad, they are intelligent (Nick Hornby )
Dialogue top-rate, people alive to their fingertips, places as real as next door - you don't get a finer comedy of manners than this (Mail on Sunday ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Every scene breathes with intimacy. Lifelikeness almost lifts the characters off the page. Ladder of Years ruefully contemplates the unhaltable passage of time. But, scintillating with joie de vivre, it also offers an intensely appealing way of passing it (Sunday Times )
Anne Tyler's novels have three qualities that make them special: they are funny, they are sad, they are intelligent (Nick Hornby )
Dialogue top-rate, people alive to their fingertips, places as real as next door - you don't get a finer comedy of manners than this (Mail on Sunday ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Book Description
Have you ever wanted to walk right out of your life?
--This text refers to the
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book starts off with every woman's secret fear - that in amongst all her duties and tasks and routines that she has become invisible. This is borne out by the "Every woman" missing person's description of her. The journey is an interesting one - perhaps the ending is a little neater than life. But many of us dont in the end want to throw it all away - but re-establish ourselves in our current lives. So if you have kids and are married there are moments of smiles, joy, empathy and quiet bravery in this book. It was my first read by this author and it got me hooked on her....
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By Philip Spires
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Delia, short for Cordelia, is the central character of Anne Tyler's Ladder Of Years. As usual for Anne Tyler, Delia is a Baltimore resident, a wife, a mother and probably, at least from the outside, a pillar of strength and dependability in both family and community. The children are growing up. Which children don't? Bet then it's how they grow up that matters, isn't it? Sam, the husband, is doing moderately well. Moderate seems to be the word, as far as Sam is concerned. He's hardly made a success of the business he inherited from Delia's father, but the family survives to inhabit a middle class, rather liberal niche in the common psyche. As Ladder Of Years opens, the family is holidaying by the sea and Delia is dressed, mentally, for the beach.
And then, without warning, even to herself, she takes off. Just like that, whatever "that" might be. She absconds. Goes missing. Disappears. There's suspicion of drowning. A report appears in a Baltimore paper. The family fears she has come to harm. But no, she hasn't. In fact, still dressed for the beach she is heading off to a place she doesn't know with a stranger. It's no particular stranger, just a stranger.
Quite soon, and with new clothes, a new address and a changed life, Delia takes on a new identity. Though Baltimore wife and mother still lives in her head, she's become a new Delia, single, independent and employed. In this new guise, she inter-reacts with her new community and gradually becomes part of it. Why did she leave the apparent safety, security and responsibility of her family? Not even she can answer.
What slowly begins to emerge, however, is that Delia's choice of opting out becomes increasingly one of opting in. By degree the characters in her new life start to become more demanding.... Read more ›
And then, without warning, even to herself, she takes off. Just like that, whatever "that" might be. She absconds. Goes missing. Disappears. There's suspicion of drowning. A report appears in a Baltimore paper. The family fears she has come to harm. But no, she hasn't. In fact, still dressed for the beach she is heading off to a place she doesn't know with a stranger. It's no particular stranger, just a stranger.
Quite soon, and with new clothes, a new address and a changed life, Delia takes on a new identity. Though Baltimore wife and mother still lives in her head, she's become a new Delia, single, independent and employed. In this new guise, she inter-reacts with her new community and gradually becomes part of it. Why did she leave the apparent safety, security and responsibility of her family? Not even she can answer.
What slowly begins to emerge, however, is that Delia's choice of opting out becomes increasingly one of opting in. By degree the characters in her new life start to become more demanding.... Read more ›
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By Jodez mondez
Format:Paperback
I have to say after watching my mum reading Anne Tyler for many years I asked to borrow one of her books - she handed me Ladder of years and said see how I get on with it! I couldn't put it down!!
The first page where it gives a police description tells you all you need to know about why Cordelia Grimstead goes "missing" - the way the story is told you can actually picture the faces and places!! Not the ending I had been hoping for but it kept you guessing until the end.
A seriously great book which has inspired me to buy my own collection!!
The first page where it gives a police description tells you all you need to know about why Cordelia Grimstead goes "missing" - the way the story is told you can actually picture the faces and places!! Not the ending I had been hoping for but it kept you guessing until the end.
A seriously great book which has inspired me to buy my own collection!!
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By Shona Jones
Format:Paperback
Anne Tyler has a special skill - the ability to weave words to magically create characters whose breath you can all but feel off the page. This book, the third of hers I've read, is no exception.
I admit I had a little difficulty understanding Delia at the start, but really got under her skin when she left her family to carve a new life for herself. Her world seemed to suddenly be filled with colour, the small town full of life. I still didn't feel Delia was being necessarily true to herself however... I think maybe that is the woman we see in the opening sequence in the supermarket, full of excitement at the subterfuge she becomes embroiled in.
Now to the tricky part - the ending. Much as I admire Tyler, I can't help feeling she wimped out here. I just didn't find it particularly credible, hence the three star review. Interesting to note this was written more than 25 years ago - the Tyler of her later novels has much more confidence.
I admit I had a little difficulty understanding Delia at the start, but really got under her skin when she left her family to carve a new life for herself. Her world seemed to suddenly be filled with colour, the small town full of life. I still didn't feel Delia was being necessarily true to herself however... I think maybe that is the woman we see in the opening sequence in the supermarket, full of excitement at the subterfuge she becomes embroiled in.
Now to the tricky part - the ending. Much as I admire Tyler, I can't help feeling she wimped out here. I just didn't find it particularly credible, hence the three star review. Interesting to note this was written more than 25 years ago - the Tyler of her later novels has much more confidence.
36 of 41 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Delia does what we all wish we could do at some point in our lives. She walks out on her life. Not because it's terrible or too hard, but because you feel like it. Who knows what the reason is? You need a change. You want to see what else is out there. The question of why will eat away at your mind while reading this novel and you'll never find a suitable answer. What Anne Tyler does in this novel is build a fictional story within a story. This woman creates a little world within her own world in which she feels space to breathe. A small apartment with a local library: what a perfect little escape. Every small action she performs within this world has something tremendously sacred attached to it because it belongs wholly to her. It is a chance for her to find out who she is again. After so many years of living in the role of a mother and having that image dominate the way in which people look at her, she is able to stand in the mirror and see herself as an independent woman. We should all be allowed small opportunities of selfishness from time to time. Delia is simply making up for lost time with the time she takes away from her family. You might think that it is inevitable she would return to her old life, but it isn't. It is her decision if she wants to go back or not and it is a hard one. This is the thrilling thing about this novel and it is why it is one of my favorite. Along with Delia, you are in completely unfamiliar territory where you feel the central character is empowered to direct her own destiny rather than the author or any of the other characters in the novel. You discover that we all have the choice to plunge into a well of potential and remerge as someone completely new.... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
this book was not for me
i know anne tyler is a very popular author but i just could not get into this book at all
Published 6 days ago by chris
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent
Really enjoyed the story and got into to quickly. Found the character of the husband a little shaky but generally all very believable and wondered how many people would like the... Read more
Published 20 days ago by Mrs Ann M E Lyon
2.0 out of 5 stars
Ladder of years
I heard this book referred to and thought I must give it a try, but I suppose it is personal choice and I really did not like it.
Published 4 months ago by A BUTWELL
4.0 out of 5 stars
another good read
Ladder of the years by Ann Tyler.This was another gem from one of my favourite wriers. Ann Tyler makes the ordinary seem extraordinary
Published 4 months ago by margaret hutchinson
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler
I have read several of Anne Tyler's books and, although I enjoyed reading Ladder of Years, I enjoyed An Amateur Marriage and St Maybe more.
Published 5 months ago by Sally Hedley
5.0 out of 5 stars
Couldn't put it down.
A really good read and so well written that I am going on to read more of Anne Tyler's work.
Published 6 months ago by meg
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellant reading
An excellant book, difficult to put down once you start reading it.Thoroughly enjoyed reading and will look for other books by this author.
Published 8 months ago by fireflymaster
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not as straightforward as it seems
On the surface, this book seems to be just a story of the day-to-day events in the life of a woman who leaves home and starts again, and when I finished it I really didn't like the... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Trufflebottom
1.0 out of 5 stars
don't waste your time
This is the first (and possibly last) Anne Tyler novel I have read. Whilst I found the start very gripping the rest left a lot to be desired. Read more
Published 10 months ago by bookmum
4.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant up until the ending.
I began reading this book with some skepticism. I didn't expect to be able to relate to a woman who walks out on her husband and children, and when she initially seems to 'fall'... Read more
Published 10 months ago by hshm
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