Anne Tyler
Encyclopedia
Anne Tyler is an American
novel
ist.
Tyler, the eldest of four children, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota
. Her father was a chemist and her mother a social worker. Her early childhood was spent in a succession of Quaker communities in the mountains of North Carolina and in Raleigh
. She didn't attend a school until she was 11 and this unorthodox upbringing enabled her to view 'the normal world with a certain amount of distance and surprise'.
She graduated at age nineteen from Duke University
, and completed graduate work in Russia
n studies at Columbia University
in New York City. She worked as a librarian and bibliographer before moving to Maryland. In 1963, Tyler married Iran
ian psychiatrist
and novelist Taghi Mohammad Modarressi, with whom she had two daughters, Tezh and Mitra. Modarressi died in 1997. Tyler resides in Baltimore, Maryland, where most of her novels are set.
Tyler's ninth novel, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
, which she considers her best work, was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1983. Her tenth novel, The Accidental Tourist
was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award
in 1985 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 and was made into a 1988 movie starring William Hurt
and Geena Davis
. Her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons
, received the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. She has edited three anthologies: The Best American Short Stories 1983, Best of the South, and Best of the South: The Best of the Second Decade. She is noteworthy among contemporary best selling novelists, for she does not grant face-to-face interviews and rarely does book tours, nor does she make many other public appearances, although she has made herself available through email interviews.
, The Saturday Evening Post
, Redbook
, McCall's
, and Harper's
, they have not been published as a collection. Her stories include:
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
ist.
Tyler, the eldest of four children, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
. Her father was a chemist and her mother a social worker. Her early childhood was spent in a succession of Quaker communities in the mountains of North Carolina and in Raleigh
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh...
. She didn't attend a school until she was 11 and this unorthodox upbringing enabled her to view 'the normal world with a certain amount of distance and surprise'.
She graduated at age nineteen from Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
, and completed graduate work in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n studies at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York City. She worked as a librarian and bibliographer before moving to Maryland. In 1963, Tyler married Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
and novelist Taghi Mohammad Modarressi, with whom she had two daughters, Tezh and Mitra. Modarressi died in 1997. Tyler resides in Baltimore, Maryland, where most of her novels are set.
Tyler's ninth novel, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a 1982 novel by Anne Tyler set in Baltimore, Maryland.The book follows the lives of three siblings: Cody, Ezra, and Jenny, and explores their experiences and recollections of growing up with their mother, Pearl, after the family is deserted by their father, Beck...
, which she considers her best work, was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1983. Her tenth novel, The Accidental Tourist
The Accidental Tourist
The Accidental Tourist is a 1985 novel by Anne Tyler that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction...
was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
in 1985 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 and was made into a 1988 movie starring William Hurt
William Hurt
William McGill Hurt is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States , for which he received a Golden Globe nomination...
and Geena Davis
Geena Davis
Virginia Elizabeth "Geena" Davis is an American actress, film producer, writer, former fashion model, and a women's Olympics archery team semi-finalist...
. Her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons
Breathing Lessons
Breathing Lessons is a 1988 novel by American author Anne Tyler. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1989 and was also Time Magazine's book of the year....
, received the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. She has edited three anthologies: The Best American Short Stories 1983, Best of the South, and Best of the South: The Best of the Second Decade. She is noteworthy among contemporary best selling novelists, for she does not grant face-to-face interviews and rarely does book tours, nor does she make many other public appearances, although she has made herself available through email interviews.
Novels
- If Morning Ever ComesIf Morning Ever ComesIf Morning Ever Comes is American author Anne Tyler's first novel, published when she was only 22.Set in Sandhill, North Carolina, it focuses on Ben Joe Hawkes, a self-proclaimed worrier who finds himself responsible for taking care of his mother and five sisters after his father deserts the...
(1964) - The Tin Can Tree (1965)
- A Slipping-Down Life (1970)
- The Clock WinderThe Clock Winder-Plot:The protagonist of the story is Elizabeth, a young woman who is taking time away from college to earn a bit of money and discover a sense of direction. By happenstance, she ends up landing in Baltimore near the home of Mrs. Pamela Emerson, a recent widow and the mother of seven grown...
(1972) - Celestial Navigation (1974)
- Searching for CalebSearching for CalebSearching for Caleb is Anne Tyler's sixth novel. It was originally published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1975.- From The Boston Globe :Duncan Peck has a fascination for randomness and is always taking his family on the move. His wife, Justine, is a fortune teller who can't remember the past...
(1975) - Earthly PossessionsEarthly PossessionsEarthly Possessions is a 1999 made-for-cable movie starring Susan Sarandon and Stephen Dorff. It is an adaptation of Anne Tyler's novel about a housewife who thinks her life is going nowhere....
(1977) - Morgan's Passing (1980)
- Dinner at the Homesick RestaurantDinner at the Homesick RestaurantDinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a 1982 novel by Anne Tyler set in Baltimore, Maryland.The book follows the lives of three siblings: Cody, Ezra, and Jenny, and explores their experiences and recollections of growing up with their mother, Pearl, after the family is deserted by their father, Beck...
(1982) - The Accidental TouristThe Accidental TouristThe Accidental Tourist is a 1985 novel by Anne Tyler that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction...
(1985) - Breathing LessonsBreathing LessonsBreathing Lessons is a 1988 novel by American author Anne Tyler. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1989 and was also Time Magazine's book of the year....
(1988) - Saint MaybeSaint MaybeSaint Maybe is a 1991 novel by American author Anne Tyler.Tyler's plot explores the ways ordinary people react to disastrous events with quietly heroic behavior. When seventeen-year-old Ian Bedloe confronts his older brother Danny with his belief that the latter's wife, Lucy, is having an affair,...
(1991) - Ladder of YearsLadder of Years-Plot summary:This is a novel about a woman, Delia Grinstead, who finds her own self-identity and battles with familial relationships. As a spontaneous act of deep sadness and anger, she walks out on her family during a beach vacation. Not only does she put herself in a dire financial situation,...
(1995) - A Patchwork PlanetA Patchwork PlanetA Patchwork Planet is a novel by Anne Tyler. Published in 1998, it tells the story of Barnaby Gaitlin, anti-hero and failure who suffers from more than the usual quota of misfortune...
(1998) - Back When We Were GrownupsBack When We Were GrownupsBack When We Were Grownups is a 2001 novel written by Anne Tyler in memory of her husband, who died in 1997.Tyler's 15th novel, like most of her work, is set in Baltimore, Maryland...
(2001) - The Amateur MarriageThe Amateur MarriageThe Amateur Marriage, published in 2004, is American author Anne Tyler's sixteenth novel.-Plot summary:The plot concerns the marriage of Michael Anton and Pauline Barclay, who meet when he tends to her bloodied brow in his family's grocery store, located in a primarily Eastern European conclave in...
(2004) - Digging to AmericaDigging to AmericaDigging to America, published by Knopf in May 2006, is American author Anne Tyler's seventeenth novel.-Plot:Digging to America is a story set in Baltimore, Maryland about two very different families’ experiences with adoption and their relationships with each other...
(2006) - Noah's CompassNoah's CompassNoah's Compass is a novel by Anne Tyler first published in 2009 about a solitary 60 year-old man trying to come to terms with his own life. Critics agree that in this, Tyler's 18th novel, the author again treads familiar territory by setting her novel in Baltimore and by following the life of an...
(2010) - The Beginner's Goodbye (forthcoming April 2012)
Other
- Tumble Tower (1993) A children's book illustrated by her daughter Mitra Modarressi
- Timothy Tugbottom Says No! (2005) Illustrated by Mitra Modarressi
Uncollected stories
Although Tyler's short stories have been published in The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
, Redbook
Redbook
Redbook is an American women's magazine published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.-History:...
, McCall's
McCall's
McCall's was a monthly American women's magazine that enjoyed great popularity through much of the 20th century, peaking at a readership of 8.4 million in the early 1960s. It was established as a small-format magazine called The Queen in 1873...
, and Harper's
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
, they have not been published as a collection. Her stories include:
- "Average Waves in Unprotected Waters" (1977)
- "Teenage Wasteland" (1983)
- "Holding Things Together"
Film adaptations
- The Accidental TouristThe Accidental Tourist (film)The Accidental Tourist is a 1988 American drama film starring William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, and Geena Davis. It was directed by Lawrence Kasdan and scored by John Williams. The film's screenplay was adapted by Kasdan and Frank Galati from the novel of the same name by Anne Tyler...
(1988) - Breathing Lessons (TV) (1994)
- Saint Maybe (TV) (1998)
- A Slipping-Down LifeA Slipping-Down LifeA Slipping-Down Life is a 1999 romantic drama film directed by Toni Kalem. Based on a novel by Anne Tyler, it stars Lili Taylor and Guy Pearce.-Plot:...
(1999) - Earthly PossessionsEarthly PossessionsEarthly Possessions is a 1999 made-for-cable movie starring Susan Sarandon and Stephen Dorff. It is an adaptation of Anne Tyler's novel about a housewife who thinks her life is going nowhere....
(TV) (1999) - Back When We Were Grownups (TV) (2004)