Q: Your protagonist in this novel, Barnaby Gaitlin, has been described as an average, ordinary man. Is this how you would describe him? AT: I think Barnaby is average and ordinary only to the extent that most people are average and ordinary—that is, not very, if you look carefully enough. Q: Barnaby is, among other things, a man struggling to cast off the weight of his past. How successful is he, and indeed any of us, in doing so? AT: I do believe that Barnaby is at least largely successful in getting out from under the weight of his past—that’s where the plot derives its movement. Q: At the close of this novel, we are left wondering just exactly who is Barnaby’s angel. How would you answer this question? AT: Barnaby has not just one but many angels—the network of people he lives among who see him for the good man he is and wish him well and do what they can to ease his life. Q: You delightfully skewer class pretensions in this novel, most notably in the form of Barnaby’s mother, Margot, and explore the cost and meaning of class mobility in America. Why is this such a central theme in your work? AT: I’ve always enjoyed studying the small clues that indicate a particular class level. And I am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America, even though it’s not supposed to be. Q: You have been credited by reviewer James Bowman in the Wall Street Journal with creating fictional businesses with great potential, Rent-a-Back being the most recent and best example. What was the inspiration for Rent a Back? AT: Rent-a-Back’s inspiration was pure wishful thinking. I would love to have such a service available to me. Q: Many reviewers have commented upon your powerful, realistic, and humane portrayal of elderly characters in this novel as well as the relative lack of sustained exploration of old age in contemporary American fiction. Do you agree with this assessment of the state of the field? AT: There are a number of good novels about old people—I don’t see a lack. Q: Why did you choose to create such a wide array of elderly characters and make the often painful process of aging a central focus of this novel? AT: Time, in general, has always been a central obsession of mine—what it does to people, how it can constitute a plot all on its own. So naturally, I am interested in old age. Q: If you had to choose one of the family units in this novel as your own, which would you choose and why? AT: For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood. Q: Barnaby is a character who lives very much in his own head. Was it difficult to bring this loner to such vivid life on the page? AT: I had trouble at first getting Barnaby to “open up” to me—he was as thorny and difficult with me as he was with his family, and we had a sort of sparring, tussling relationship until I grew more familiar with him. Q: Which characters) presented the greatest challenge to you as a writer? AT: Sophia was a challenge, because I had less sympathy with her than with the other characters, just exactly who is Barnaby’s angel. How would you answer this question? AT: Barnaby has not just one but many angels—the network of people he lives among who see him for the good man he is and wish him well and do what they can to ease his life. Q: You delightfully skewer class pretensions in this novel, most notably in the form of Barnaby’s mother, Margot, and explore the cost and meaning of class mobility in America. Why is this such a central theme in your work? AT: I’ve always enjoyed studying the small clues that indicate a particular class level. And I am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America, even though it’s not supposed to be. Q: You have been credited by reviewer James Bowman in the Wall Street Journal with creating fictional businesses with great potential, Rent-a-Back being the most recent and best example. What was the inspiration for Rent a Back? AT: Rent-a-Back’s inspiration was pure wishful thinking. I would love to have such a service available to me. Q: Many reviewers have commented upon your powerful, realistic, and humane portrayal of elderly characters in this novel as well as the relative lack of sustained exploration of old age in contemporary American fiction. Do you agree with this assessment of the state of the field? AT: There are a number of good novels about old people—I don’t see a lack. Q: Why did you choose to create such a wide array of elderly characters and make the often painful process of aging a central focus of this novel? AT: Time, in general, has always been a central obsession of mine—what it does to people, how it can constitute a plot all on its own. So naturally, I am interested in old age. Q: If you had to choose one of the family units in this novel as your own, which would you choose and why? AT: For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood. Q: Barnaby is a character who lives very much in his own head. Was it difficult to bring this loner to such vivid life on the page? AT: I had trouble at first getting Barnaby to “open up” to me—he was as thorny and difficult with me as he was with his family, and we had a sort of sparring, tussling relationship until I grew more familiar with him. Q: Which characters) presented the greatest challenge to you as a writer? AT: Sophia was a challenge, because I had less sympathy with her than with the other characters, and therefore I had more trouble presenting her fairly. Q: How did you come to choose writing as your life’s work, and what sustains you in this often solitary vocation? AT: I didn’t really choose to write; I more or less fell into it. It’s true that it’s a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them. Q: How does the writing process work for you? Has it changed over the years? AT: I never think about the actual process of writing. I suppose I have a superstition about examining it too closely. Q: What advice would you give struggling writers trying to get published? AT: I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them—without a thought about publication—and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside. Q: How do your own experiences impact (or not) upon your work in terms of subject matter and themes and so forth? AT: None of my own experiences ever finds its way into my work. However, the stages of my life—motherhood, middle age, etc.—often influence my subject matter. you answer this question? AT: Barnaby has not just one but many angels—the network of people he lives among who see him for the good man he is and wish him well and do what they can to ease his life. Q: You delightfully skewer class pretensions in this novel, most notably in the form of Barnaby’s mother, Margot, and explore the cost and meaning of class mobility in America. Why is this such a central theme in your work? AT: I’ve always enjoyed studying the small clues that indicate a particular class level. And I am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America, even though it’s not supposed to be. Q: You have been credited by reviewer James Bowman in the Wall Street Journal with creating fictional businesses with great potential, Rent-a-Back being the most recent and best example. What was the inspiration for Rent a Back? AT: Rent-a-Back’s inspiration was pure wishful thinking. I would love to have such a service available to me. Q: Many reviewers have commented upon your powerful, realistic, and humane portrayal of elderly characters in this novel as well as the relative lack of sustained exploration of old age in contemporary American fiction. Do you agree with this assessment of the state of the field? AT: There are a number of good novels about old people—I don’t see a lack. Q: Why did you choose to create such a wide array of elderly characters and make the often painful process of aging a central focus of this novel? AT: Time, in general, has always been a central obsession of mine—what it does to people, how it can constitute a plot all on its own. So naturally, I am interested in old age. Q: If you had to choose one of the family units in this novel as your own, which would you choose and why? AT: For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood. Q: Barnaby is a character who lives very much in his own head. Was it difficult to bring this loner to such vivid life on the page? AT: I had trouble at first getting Barnaby to “open up” to me—he was as thorny and difficult with me as he was with his family, and we had a sort of sparring, tussling relationship until I grew more familiar with him. Q: Which characters) presented the greatest challenge to you as a writer? AT: Sophia was a challenge, because I had less sympathy with her than with the other characters, and therefore I had more trouble presenting her fairly. Q: How did you come to choose writing as your life’s work, and what sustains you in this often solitary vocation? AT: I didn’t really choose to write; I more or less fell into it. It’s true that it’s a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them. Q: How does the writing process work for you? Has it changed over the years? AT: I never think about the actual process of writing. I suppose I have a superstition about examining it too closely. Q: What advice would you give struggling writers trying to get published? AT: I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them—without a thought about publication—and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside. Q: How do your own experiences impact (or not) upon your work in terms of subject matter and themes and so forth? AT: None of my own experiences ever finds its way into my work. However, the stages of my life—motherhood, middle age, etc.—often influence my subject matter. Q: What themes do you find yourself consistently addressing in your work? AT: I don’t think of my work in terms of themes. I’m just trying to tell a story. Q: Because you are an author with a substantial body of work, reviewers and readers alike cannot resist choosing their favorite book. Do you have a favorite among your own works? AT: My favorite of my books is Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, becomes it comes closest to the concept I had when I started writing it. Q: As a writer who is frequently cited as an important influence on your peers, what writers and/or works have most influenced you? AT: A major influence on my writing was reading Eudora Welty’s short stories at age fourteen. It wasn’t till then that I realized that the kind of people I saw all around me could be fit subjects for literature. Q: What books would you recommend reading groups add to their lists? AT: Books that cause fiercely passionate arguments, pro and con, seem to me the best candidates for reading groups. For instance, I would recommend Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children. No one is ever neutral about that book. Q: What would you most like your readers to get out of this novel? just exactly who is Barnaby’s angel. How would you answer this question? AT: Barnaby has not just one but many angels—the network of people he lives among who see him for the good man he is and wish him well and do what they can to ease his life. Q: You delightfully skewer class pretensions in this novel, most notably in the form of Barnaby’s mother, Margot, and explore the cost and meaning of class mobility in America. Why is this such a central theme in your work? AT: I’ve always enjoyed studying the small clues that indicate a particular class level. And I am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America, even though it’s not supposed to be. Q: You have been credited by reviewer James Bowman in the Wall Street Journal with creating fictional businesses with great potential, Rent-a-Back being the most recent and best example. What was the inspiration for Rent a Back? AT: Rent-a-Back’s inspiration was pure wishful thinking. I would love to have such a service available to me. Q: Many reviewers have commented upon your powerful, realistic, and humane portrayal of elderly characters in this novel as well as the relative lack of sustained exploration of old age in contemporary American fiction. Do you agree with this assessment of the state of the field? AT: There are a number of good novels about old people—I don’t see a lack. Q: Why did you choose to create such a wide array of elderly characters and make the often painful process of aging a central focus of this novel? AT: Time, in general, has always been a central obsession of mine—what it does to people, how it can constitute a plot all on its own. So naturally, I am interested in old age. Q: If you had to choose one of the family units in this novel as your own, which would you choose and why? AT: For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood. Q: Barnaby is a character who lives very much in his own head. Was it difficult to bring this loner to such vivid life on the page? AT: I had trouble at first getting Barnaby to “open up” to me—he was as thorny and difficult with me as he was with his family, and we had a sort of sparring, tussling relationship until I grew more familiar with him. Q: Which characters) presented the greatest challenge to you as a writer? AT: Sophia was a challenge, because I had less sympathy with her than with the other characters, and therefore I had more trouble presenting her fairly. Q: How did you come to choose writing as your life’s work, and what sustains you in this often solitary vocation? AT: I didn’t really choose to write; I more or less fell into it. It’s true that it’s a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them. Q: How does the writing process work for you? Has it changed over the years? AT: I never think about the actual process of writing. I suppose I have a superstition about examining it too closely. Q: What advice would you give struggling writers trying to get published? AT: I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them—without a thought about publication—and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside. Q: How do your own experiences impact (or not) upon your work in terms of subject matter and themes and so forth? AT: None of my own experiences ever finds its way into my work. However, the stages of my life—motherhood, middle age, etc.—often influence my subject matter. Q: What themes do you find yourself consistently addressing in your work? AT: I don’t think of my work in terms of themes. I’m just trying to tell a story. Q: Because you are an author with a substantial body of work, reviewers and readers alike cannot resist choosing their favorite book. Do you have a favorite among your own works? AT: My favorite of my books is Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, becomes it comes closest to the concept I had when I started writing it. Q: As a writer who is frequently cited as an important influence on your peers, what writers and/or works have most influenced you? AT: A major influence on my writing was reading Eudora Welty’s short stories at age fourteen. It wasn’t till then that I realized that the kind of people I saw all around me could be fit subjects for literature. Q: What books would you recommend reading groups add to their lists? AT: Books that cause fiercely passionate arguments, pro and con, seem to me the best candidates for reading groups. For instance, I would recommend Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children. No one is ever neutral about that book. Q: What would you most like your readers to get out of this novel? AT: My fondest hope for any of my novels is that readers will feel, after finishing it, that for awhile they have actually stepped inside another person’s life and come to feel related to that person. Q: What is next for you? Are you working on a new project? AT: I am in the very beginning stages of a novel whose central character is sixty-five years old.
What was the inspiration for Digging to America? Does your knowledge of Iranian-American life come primarily from your experience as the wife of an Iranian man, or mainly from research?
I wish I could claim I had ever had an inspiration for a novel! Digging to America began with my thinking about the subject of adoption. (It interested me because it's so dramatic and so sudden, compared with childbirth.) That one of the families should be Iranian was a last-minute whim, just to make the writing more fun.
Nothing in my books comes from real life, but the general tone of my beloved Iranian in-laws' conversations—their fondness for a good story, their vivid narrative style, their fascination with the issue of "American" vs. "non-American"—has certainly colored the scenes involving the Hakimis.
In Digging to America’s opening scene, the day of Susan’s and Jin Ho’s arrival at the Baltimore airport from Korea, your descriptions are so detailed and vivid that a reader gets the impression you’ve witnessed such a scene yourself. Have you? More generally, do you find that your memory, or your imagination, is of more help in crafting a good scene?
Like almost everyone, I have been a fascinated bystander at more than a few of those arrival scenes. But the specific details of the arrival scene in my book are manufactured, and it is always imagination I rely upon rather than my own memory—which is, I've found, disconcertingly focused, in a not very helpful way. (I might have only the vaguest, blurriest recollection of someone, but his cushioned-looking, bitten-down fingernails will stay with me forever.)
Though your new novel shifts perspectives, it is predominantly told from Maryam's point of view. Her character is so appealing in the way she changes and opens up toward the end of the book. Out of all the novel’s characters, did you feel closest to her?
I did feel closest to Maryam, although I would not have predicted that. As Bitsy says, she's a little intimidating, but as I got to know her better I came to like her enormously.
In Digging to America, you note that your character Dave "… took some pleasure in [an] uncomplicated, coloring-book version of the world, where children in Mao jackets and children in Levis understood each other so seamlessly." In the aftermath of September 11th, and amid the war in Iraq, do you hope that your novel, for American readers, might help to foster such understanding?
I would love it if my book fostered such understanding, even though I can't claim that as my aim in writing it.
When I'm working on something, I proceed as if no one else will ever read it.It's the only way I can write unself-consciously.Not until the final draft do I force myself to remember that I'm going to have to think about how it will affect other people.
Digging to America is filled with parties that bring families together, and are reminiscent of the parties in Back When We Were Grownups—occasions at which joy is tempered by stress brought on by family conflict. Are you drawn to writing about parties? While you were working on this new book, did you notice any connections between these two novels?
I forget a book as soon as I finish writing it, which is not always a good thing. (It means I sometimes repeat myself.) So no, I didn't notice any connections.
My fondness for party scenes is partly utilitarian (what better way to percolate something among my characters?) and partly wishful thinking. In real life I avoid all parties altogether, but on paper I can mingle with the best of them.
In your essay "Still Just Writing," you wrote eloquently about balancing motherhood with writing. Over the course of your seventeen novels, how has your writing life changed? Has any novel given you more trouble than the others? Which was the hardest to work on?
The hardest novel to write was Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. (It's also my best, I think.) I can never tell ahead of time which book will give me trouble—some balk every step of the way, others seem to write themselves—but certainly the mechanics of writing, finding the time and the psychic space,are easier now that my children are grown.
In an earlier failbetter.com interview, Nick Hornby cited your novel, The Accidental Tourist, when commenting on the “Americanization of the world.” He said, “It's funny, but Anne Tyler's wonderful Accidental Tourist, written in 1985 or thereabouts, makes almost no sense now—her central character is a guy who writes guide books for cautious Americans traveling abroad, and this indicates his personal nervousness and lack of adventure. But now, of course, it seems to us as though every American is an accidental tourist…” What do you think of this interpretation? Could you have written The Accidental Tourist now?
Oh, of course I could! Not all that long ago I watched an American fellow traveler slurping unidentified raw shellfish from the murky waters off the coast of Tunisia; and of course we all know the other kind, the ones who travel with their own bottles of Jif peanut butter. There are still plenty of places in this world where you can prove your stretchability, or lack of it.
Hornby and many others have cited your novel Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant as a major influence on their own writing. Are there any young authors whose work reminds you of your own? Do you ever read something by a young author and think you see your influence on his or her work?
No, I don't. When I read, I'm purely a reader. I just want to be told a story, and I want to believe I'm living that story, and I don't give a thought to influences or method or any other writerly concerns.
You have said that you go through a "refilling" stage after finishing a novel—how long does this stage generally last? Once you return to work, how do you start—by outlining, drawing up character histories, or jumping right into writing? How many hours do you write each day?
I spend about a year between novels. My decision to start a new one is just that, a decision, since I never get inspirations. I'll say, "It's time I stopped lolling about. I'd better think something up." Then for a month or so I'll jot down desperate possibilities. "Maybe I could write about a man who does such-and-such. Or wait: I think I already did that. Well, then maybe about that woman I saw in the grocery the other day. What was she up to, exactly? What might her story have been?"
Eventually, one of these possibilities will start flowering in my mind, and I'll manufacture what's initially a very trumped-up, artificial plot. I'll write maybe one long paragraph describing the events, then a page or two breaking the events into chapters, and then reams of pages delving into my characters. After that, I'm ready to begin.
My writing day has grown shorter as I've aged, although it seems to produce the same number of pages. At most I'll spend three or four hours daily, sometimes less. The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning. If I waited till I felt like writing, I'd never write at all.
Your writing style is deceptively simple and straightforward. What do you think of the slew of young writers who take the opposite tack—whose works feature copious footnotes, diagrams, labyrinthine sentences, and the like?
I have enjoyed the work of some of those writers, in the same way that I might enjoy a particularly intriguing puzzle. But what I hope for from a book—either one that I write or one that I read—is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer.
You prefer not to do book events or book tours. Do you worry they would sap your energy for writing, or disrupt your non-writing life?
Any time I talk in public about writing, I end up not able to do any writing. It's as if some capricious Writing Elf goes into a little sulk whenever I expose him.
Even this e-mail interview will make me uncomfortably aware of the process for the next few days, but at least with e-mail there's a manageable length of time involved, and therefore the effects won't last as long.
Toward the end of Digging to America, Maryam thinks, “Wasn’t the real culture clash the one between the two sexes?” Do you think that’s true?
She worded it a bit strongly, but I do find myself more and more struck by the differences between the sexes. To put it another way: All marriages are mixed marriages.
Many of your novels have joyful endings, or endings that indicate future joy for the characters. Do you consciously try to end them this way, rather than on a bleak note? If so, why?
I consciously try to end my novels at a point where I won't have to wonder about my characters ever again. Often this does mean ending on a positive note, but not always. Celestial Navigation ended quite sadly. So did Morgan's Passing, although no one seemed to realize it.
You have said that you write extensive background profiles of each of your characters. Can you describe this process—how long do you spend on them, and what do they include? How do you integrate the information in them into your novels? Do you ever profile a character, then drop him or her from a book?
I do write long, long character notes—family background, history, details of appearance—much more than will ever appear in the novel. I think this is what lifts a book from that early calculated, artificial stage. One day, around chapter 2 or 3, I'll be slogging through some dialogue and all of a sudden a character says something that makes me laugh. Where did that come from? I'm not funny! Then another will flatly refuse the plot contrivance I've designed for him. I'll write a scene this way, write a scene that way; it slows to a crawl and stops. Finally, I say, "Oh, all right," and I drop the contrivance and the scene falls into place and I see a motive I'd never guessed and I understand where we're going. It's as if someone else is telling me the story. I don't want to say I hear voices; well, actually I do hear voices, but I don't think it's supernatural. I think it's just that when characters are given enough texture and backbone, then lo and behold, they stand on their own.
You’ve written short stories for such magazines as The New Yorker, Redbook, and Harper's, but never published them in a collection. Do you have plans to do so? Do you still write short stories? Do you prefer the form of the novel, and if so, why?
I believe I go into a short story unconsciously telling myself that it's "only" a short story. Ridiculous, when you think of William Trevor's short stories, or Alice Munro's, but there you are. I save the best of myself for novels, and I believe it shows. My stories are never quite good enough. I don't know if I'll ever write any others, but of those I have written, there are only five or so that I allow to be reprinted anywhere, and five doesn't make a collection.
Question: Like Flannery O’Connor and Alice Munro, you have such a talent capturing the voices of quirky personalities. How do you do this? Do you wander out in public places and eavesdrop on the ways people talk?
Anne Tyler: I do eavesdrop a great deal. And sort of make notes when I hear someone use a word interestingly or some little Baltimoreism or something like that. The other thing is that I think that it helps to read aloud to yourself what you write in dialog because sometimes what looks okay on paper just doesn’t sound right. So I think that helps make it sound more authentic.
Q: The city of Baltimore likes to pride itself on its quirky charm. John Waters reflects one aspect of that quirkiness in his work. Has Baltimore influenced your work?
AT: I think Baltimore has added immeasurably to my work. It does have a strong sense of self. The people in Baltimore are just so distinctly Baltimorian. It’s a gritty city and it certainly is a hard place sometimes – Nina Simone had it right – but it adds so much texture to a book.
Q: Which of your writings did you enjoy most and why? Likewise, which did you least enjoy and why?
AT: “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.” I think [it] came closest when it finally was finished to what I had thought I had wanted from it from the star. It was just one of those things that work out the way I wanted. It says things I think about family, you know, just in my heart of hearts. So I wanted to say it all and I feel I did say it all.
As far as what I don’t like, that’s easy: The first four books I wrote I wish I could just dissolve. I hate them. I think the reason is that at that point I was very young and I thought it didn’t even count as literature if it wasn’t spontaneous. Therefore I never rewrote. I just wrote like mad and sent it off, whereas now I rewrite endlessly.
Q: Have you any type of ritual when you finish writing a book?
AT: Well I know I’m done when I can say where the characters are going to be forever. I feel as though I fix them in their places. And actually, this is not very romantic, but as soon as I finish writing a book I clean all the drawers in my house that I neglected while I was writing. I just get very domestic.
Q: Please discuss your writing process. Do you make notes prior to an outline? Do you use a computer? Do you require silence or can there be any non-alarming noise in the background?
AT: I start with an outline that’s only a page long. It’s just the high points of the plot. But there are several pages of notes about the characters, so I really know a whole lot more about them than I’ll ever say in the actual novel. And it usually takes me about a month to map out a novel before I begin the actual writing. Then, once I’m writing, I use a particular pen – a Pilot P500 gel pen, which I own by the gross because I’m always afraid they will stop making them – in black ink. It has to be on unruled paper, no lines, and I write in a place where I can hear sounds from outside. If I can hear children playing or workmen talking, it seems to help me. I just like to hear language. I don’t have music or anything like that. Other than that, I really like silence within my writing … I always write at home, always in the same place.
Q: I’ve always wondered how an author chooses names for their characters. First names, surnames? How do you come up with the names? Is there ever any hidden significance?
AT: There’s no hidden meaning. A lot of names I pick up, I hear somebody calling someone and make a note of the name because it’s interesting. So I have a bunch of file cards with just little first names or last names. It’s funny: When I’m trying to think what a character’s name is, I always know what the first letter will be. And I don’t know why, but it’s so clear to me: “It’s got to be a name beginning with N,” and then I go down the list. I even have one of those baby name books.
[As far as Whitshank in “A Spool Of Blue Thread”]: I was just trying to find a name that wouldn’t be too ordinary and I thought it should also be sort of Anglo-Saxon. It was just sort of invented. I don’t know if it even exists.
Q: One scene that has always intrigued me is the airplane at the end of “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.” What were you imagining for the characters when you wrote that as the last scene?
AT: That book, unbeknownst to anyone but me, has some military thing or reference to war or fighting in every single chapter, and that’s just because I felt the family was at war so often. So that little brown plane is a military plane that’s just overhead. And it also refers to something that I thought once when I was thinking about a family quarrel or something in my own family. I I was picturing is that right afterward – it all worked out – my father was out with my brothers and me and we were tossing a ball back and forth, and I just pictured that ball rising in the sky and falling back down, this little white ball. And it seemed like such a carefree, happy image after thinking about a family fight, so in a way that was reflected too in the little airplane.
Q: Based on my experience as an aspiring writer, “quiet” novels are difficult to sell even when the writing is considered strong and the characters and plot intriguing. Do you have any advice for authors of quiet novels? I would hate to imagine my bookshelves without your novels on it.
AT: No, I don’t have advice, but I really, really wish this person well because I love to read quiet novels myself.
Q: Are there other writers in your family? Do they seek your opinion?
AT: There are no writers. They’re all scientists oddly enough.
Q: What are your future writing plans?
AT: I don’t know yet because I always have this long sort of refilling process where I just try to drink in what the world is doing these days. And then I’ll sit down probably … I don’t know, maybe summer. It’s a good time to start a book in the summer.
Anne Tyler (born October 25, 1941) is an American novelist, short story writer, and literary critic. She has published twenty-three novels, including Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982), The Accidental Tourist (1985), and Breathing Lessons (1988). All three were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and Breathing Lessons won the prize in 1989. She has also won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, the Ambassador Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2012 she was awarded The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence.[1] Tyler's twentieth novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2015, and Redhead By the Side of the Road was longlisted for the same award in 2020. She is recognized for her fully developed characters, her "brilliantly imagined and absolutely accurate detail,"[2] her "rigorous and artful style", and her "astute and open language."[3]
Early life and education[edit]Early childhood[edit]
The oldest of four children, she was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her father, Lloyd Parry Tyler, was an industrial chemist and her mother, Phyllis Mahon Tyler, a social worker. Both her parents were Quakers who were very active with social causes in the Midwest and the South.[4] Her family lived in a succession of Quaker communities in the South until they settled in 1948 in a Quaker commune in Celo, in the mountains of North Carolina near Burnsville.[5][6] The Celo Community settlement was populated largely by conscientious objectors and members of the liberal Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends.[7] Tyler lived there from age seven through eleven and helped her parents and others care for livestock and organic farming. While she did not attend formal public school in Celo, lessons were taught in art, carpentry, and cooking in homes and in other subjects in a tiny school house. Her early informal training was supplemented by correspondence school.[4][5][6][8]
Her first memory of her own creative story-telling was of crawling under the bed covers at age three and "telling myself stories in order to get to sleep at night."[5] Her first book at age seven was a collection of drawings and stories about "lucky girls...who got to go west in covered wagons."[5] Her favorite book as a child was The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton. Tyler acknowledges that this book, which she read many times during this period of limited access to books, had a profound influence on her, showing "how the years flowed by, people altered, and nothing could ever stay the same."[9] This early perception of changes over time is a theme that reappears in many of her novels decades later, just as The Little House itself appears in her novel Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Tyler also describes reading Little Women twenty-two times as a child.[4] When the Tyler family left Celo after four years to move to Raleigh, NC, eleven-year-old Tyler had never attended public school and never used a telephone.[5] This unorthodox upbringing enabled her to view "the normal world with a certain amount of distance and surprise."[10]
Tyler felt herself to be an outsider in the public schools she attended in Raleigh, a feeling that has followed her most of her life.[5] She believes that this sense of being an outsider has contributed to her becoming a writer: "I believe that any kind of setting-apart situation will do [to become a writer]. In my case, it was emerging from the commune…and trying to fit into the outside world."[5] Despite her lack of public schooling prior to age eleven, Anne entered school academically well ahead of most of her classmates in Raleigh. With access now to libraries, she discovered Eudora Welty, Gabriel García Márquez, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many others.[4] Eudora Welty remains one of her favorite writers, and The Wide Net and Other Stories is one of her favorite books; she has called Welty "my crowning influence."[6] She credits Welty with showing her that books could be about the everyday details of life, not just about major events.[5] During her years at Needham B. Broughton High School in Raleigh, she was inspired and encouraged by a remarkable English teacher, Phyllis Peacock.[4][11] "Mrs. Peacock" had previously taught the writer Reynolds Price, under whom Tyler would later study at Duke University. Peacock would also later teach the writer Armistead Maupin. Seven years after high school, Tyler would dedicate her first published novel to "Mrs. Peacock, for everything you've done."[11]
When Tyler graduated from high school at age sixteen, she wanted to attend Swarthmore College, a school founded in 1860 by the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends.[12] However, she had won a full AB Duke scholarship[13] to Duke University, and her parents pressured her to go to Duke because they needed to save money for the education of her three younger brothers.[4][14] At Duke, Tyler enrolled in Reynolds Price's first creative writing class, which also included a future poet, Fred Chappell. Price was most impressed with the sixteen-year-old Tyler, describing her as "frighteningly mature for 16," "wide-eyed," and "an outsider."[5] Years later Price would describe Tyler as "one of the best novelists alive in the world,… who was almost as good a writer at 16 as she is now." [5][8] Tyler took an additional creative writing course with Price and also studied under William Blackburn, who also had taught William Styron, Josephine Humphreys, and James Applewhite at Duke, as well as Price and Chappell.[8]
As a college student, Tyler had not yet determined she wanted to become a writer. She loved painting and the visual arts. She also was involved in the drama society in high school and at Duke, where she acted in a number of plays, playing Laura in The Glass Menagerie and Mrs. Gibbs in Our Town.[5][8][15] She majored in Russian Literature at Duke—not English—and graduated in 1961, at age nineteen, having been inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. With her Russian Literature background she received a fellowship to graduate school in Slavic Studies at Columbia University.[8]
Living in New York City was quite an adjustment for her. There she became somewhat addicted to riding trains and subways: "While I rode I often felt like I was…an enormous eye taking things in, turning them over and sorting them out….writing was the only way" [to express her observations].[5] Tyler left Columbia graduate school after a year, having completed course work but not her master's thesis. She returned to Duke, where she got a job in the library as a Russian bibliographer.[4] It was there that she met Taghi Modarressi, a resident in child psychiatry in Duke Medical School and a writer himself, and they were married a year later (1963).[4]
Career[edit]Early writing and first publications[edit]
While an undergraduate at Duke, Tyler published her short story "Laura" in the Duke literary journal Archive, for which she won the newly created Anne Flexner award for creative writing.[4][8] In college and prior to her marriage, she wrote many short stories, one of which impressed Reynolds Price so that he later stated that it was the "most finished, most accomplished short story I have ever received from an undergraduate in my thirty years of teaching."[5] "The Saints in Caesar's Household" was published in Archive also and won her a second Anne Flexner award. This short story led to her meeting Diarmuid Russell, to whom Price had sent it with kudos. Russell, who was an agent for both Reynolds Price and for Tyler's "crowning influence" Eudora Welty, later became Tyler's agent.[5][8]
While working at the Duke library—before and after marrying Modarressi—Tyler did continue to write short stories and started work on her first novel, If Morning Ever Comes. During this period her short stories appeared in The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, and Harpers.[5] After the couple moved to Montreal—Modarressi's U. S. visa had expired and they moved there so he could finish his residency—Tyler continued writing while looking for work.[4][8] Her first novel was published in 1964 and The Tin Can Tree was published the next year. Years later she disowned both of these novels, as well as many of the short stories she wrote during this period. She has even written that she "would like to burn them."[14] She feels that most of this early work suffers from the lack of thorough character development and her failure to rework material repeatedly.[6]
A hiatus from writing: having babies, raising children—1965 to 1970[edit]
In 1965 (age 24), Tyler had her first child, a daughter they named Tezh. Two years later a second daughter, Mitra, was born. About this time, the couple moved to Baltimore, MD as Taghi had finished his residency and obtained a position at the University of Maryland Medical School.[4] With the moves, the changes in jobs, and the raising of two young children, Tyler had little time or energy for writing and published nothing between 1965 and 1970.[5] She settled comfortably in the city of Baltimore where she has remained and where she has set most of her subsequent novels. Baltimore is generally considered to have a true mix of Southern and Northern culture. It also is set in area of considerable Quaker presence, and Tyler eventually enrolled both her daughters in a local Friends school.[4] During this period she began writing literary reviews for journals, newspapers, etc. to provide the family with additional income; she would continue this employment until the late 1980s, writing approximately 250 reviews in total.[8] While this period was not productive for her writing career, Tyler does feel like this time enriched her spirit and her experience and in turn gave her subsequent writing greater depth, as she had "more of a self to speak from."[14]
Growing recognition as a novelist—1970 to 1980[edit]
Tyler began writing again in 1970 and had published three more novels by 1974—A Slipping-Down Life, The Clock Winder, and Celestial Navigation. In her own opinion, her writing improved considerably during this period; with her children entering school, she was able to devote a great deal more focus to it than had been possible since she graduated from Duke.[6] With Celestial Navigation, Tyler began to get national recognition: Gail Godwin gave it a very favorable review in the New York Times Review of Books.[4] While she is not proud of her first four novels, Tyler considers this fifth novel one of her favorites. It was a difficult book to write she notes, since it required rewriting draft after draft to truly develop her understanding of the characters.[5]John Updike gave a favorable review to her next novel, Searching for Caleb, writing: "Funny and lyric and true, exquisite in its details and ambitious in its design…This writer is not merely good, she is wickedly good."[16] Afterwards he proceeded to take an interest in her work and reviewed her next four novels as well.[4]Morgan's Passing (1980) won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction and was nominated for both the American Book Awards and the National Book Critics Circle Award.[4]Joyce Carol Oates gave it good review in Mademoiselle: "Fascinating….So unconventional a love story that it appears to take its protagonists themselves by surprise."[17][better source needed]
With her next novel, Tyler truly arrived as a recognized artist in the literary world. Tyler's ninth novel, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, which she considers her best work,[6] was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, PEN/Faulkner Award, and the American Book Award for Fiction in 1983. In his review in The New Yorker, John Updike wrote, "Her art needed only the darkening that would give her beautifully shaped sketches solidity…In her ninth novel, she has arrived at a new level of power."[18] Her tenth novel, The Accidental Tourist, was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 1985, the Ambassador Book Award for Fiction in 1986, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1986. It was also made into a 1988 movie starring William Hurt and Geena Davis. The popularity of this well-received film further increased the growing public awareness of her work. Her 11th novel, Breathing Lessons, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1989 and was Time magazine's "Book of the Year".[8] It was adapted into a 1994 TV movie, as eventually were four other of her novels.[19][20]
Since her Pulitzer Prize with Breathing Lessons, Tyler has written eight more novels, all of which have received favorable reviews; many have been Book of the Month Club Main Selections and have become New York Times Bestsellers. Ladder of Years was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the ten best books of 1995. A Patchwork Planet was a New York Times Notable Book (1999). Saint Maybe (1991) and Back When We Were Grownups (2001) were adapted into TV movies in 1998 and 2004, respectively.[21][22] In her 2006 novel Digging to America, she explored how an immigrant from Iran, who has lived in the U. S. for 35 years, deals with her "outsiderness," perspectives with which Tyler is of course very familiar personally.
In addition to her novels, Tyler has published short stories in The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, Redbook, McCall's, and Harper's, but they have never been published as a collection.[5][8] Her stories include "Average Waves in Unprotected Waters" (1977), "Holding Things Together" (1977), and "Teenage Wasteland" (1983). Between 1983 and 1996, she edited three anthologies: The Best American Short Stories 1983, Best of the South, and Best of the South: The Best of the Second Decade.
In 1963, Tyler married Iranianpsychiatrist and novelist Taghi Mohammad Modarressi. Modarressi, 10 years her senior, had left Iran and his family as a political refugee at age 25.[4][23] After a year and a half internship in Wichita, Kansas, he obtained a residency in child psychiatry at Duke University Medical School. There he met Tyler and discovered their common interest in literature.[4] Modarressi had written two award-winning novels in Persian and so was quite an accomplished writer himself. He later wrote three more novels, two of which Tyler herself helped to translate to English (The Book of Absent People and The Pilgrim's Rules of Etiquette).[4][24] In the 1980s, Modarressi founded the Center for Infant Study in Baltimore and the Cold Spring Family Center Therapeutic Nursery in Pimlico, MD, which dealt with children who had experienced emotional trauma.[24] Modarressi died in 1997 at the age of 65, from lymphoma.
Tyler and Modarressi had two daughters, Tezh and Mitra. Both share their mother's interest in, and talent for, painting. Tezh is a professional photographer, and an artist who works primarily in oils,[25] who painted the cover of her mother's novel, Ladder of Years.[4] Mitra is a professional illustrator working primarily in watercolors. She has illustrated seven books, including two children's books co-authored with Tyler (Tumble Tower and Timothy Tugbottom Says No!).[4][26]
Tyler resides in the Roland Park neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, where most of her novels are set. Today tourists can even take an "Anne Tyler tour" of the area.[6] For some time she was noteworthy among contemporary best-selling novelists, for she rarely granted face-to-face interviews nor did book tours nor made other public appearances. In 2012 she broke with this policy and gave her first face-to-face interview in almost 40 years; subsequently, Mark Lawson interviewed her on BBC Radio in 2013 about her approach to writing.[6][27] In 2015, she discussed her 20th novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, in a live radio interview with Diane Rehm and callers on The Diane Rehm Show.[28]
Anne Tyler's novels have been reviewed and analyzed by numerous fellow authors, scholars and professional critics. The summary that follows of the nature of her work relies upon selected descriptions and insights by a limited number of the many distinguished literati who have reviewed her works. Also Tyler herself has revealed much about her own writing through interviews. Although she has refused to participate in face-to-face interviews until very recently, she has participated in numerous e-mail interviews over the years. These e-mail interviews have provided material for biographies, journal articles, reader's guides, and instructional materials.
Tyler has occasionally been classified as a "Southern author" or a "modern American author." The Southern category apparently results from the fact that she grew up and went to college in the South. Also she admired and/or studied under well-known Southern authors Eudora Welty and Reynolds Price. In a rare interview with The New York Times, Tyler cited Eudora Welty as a major literary influence: "Reading Eudora Welty when I was growing up showed me that very small things are often really larger than the large things".[29] However, poet and author Katha Pollitt notes, "It is hard to classify Anne Tyler's novels. They are Southern in their sure sense of family and place but lack the taste for violence and the Gothic that often characterizes self-consciously southern literature. They are modern in their fictional techniques, yet utterly unconcerned with contemporary moment as a subject, so that, with only minor dislocations, her stories could just as well have taken place in twenties or thirties."[2]
It is also difficult to classify Tyler in terms of themes; as she herself notes, "I don't think of my work in terms of themes. I'm just trying to tell a story."[30] Tyler goes on to say, "Any large 'questions of life' that emerge in my novels are accidental—not a reason for writing the novel in the first place but either (1) questions that absorb my characters, quite apart from me, or (2) on occasion, questions that may be thematic to my own life at the moment, even if I'm not entirely aware of them. Answers, if they come, come from the characters' experiences, not from mine, and I often find myself viewing those answers with a sort of distant, bemused surprise."[5]
In Tyler's works, the characters are the driving forces behind the stories and the starting point for her writing: "I do make a point of writing down every imaginable facet of my characters before I begin a book, trying to get to know them so I can figure out how they'll react in any situation…..My reason for writing now is to live lives other than my own, and I do that by burrowing deeper and deeper….till I reach the center of those lives."[31]
The magic of her novels starts with her ability to create those characters in the reader's mind through the use of remarkably realistic details. As early as 1976, Pollitt described her skill in this way: "Tyler [is] polishing brighter and brighter a craft many novelists no longer deem essential to their purpose: the unfolding of character through brilliantly imagined and absolutely accurate detail."[2] Twelve years later, Michiko Kakutani, in her review of Breathing Lessons, extolled "her ability to select details that reveal precisely how her characters feel and think" and her "gift for sympathy, for presenting each character's case with humor and compassion."[32] Kakutani later went on to note that "each character in Saint Maybe has been fully rendered, fleshed out with a palpable interior life, and each has been fit, like a hand-sawed jigsaw-puzzle piece, into the matrix of family life."[33]Carol Shields, also writing about her characters, observes: "Tyler has always put her characters to work. Their often humble or eccentric occupations, carefully observed and threaded with humor, are tightly sewn to the other parts of their lives, offering them the mixed benefit of tedium and consolation, as well as a lighted stage for the unfolding of their dramatic selves. She also allows her men and women an opportunity for redemption."[34]
Tyler has clearly spelled out the importance of her characters to her stories: "As far as I'm concerned, character is everything. I never did see why I have to throw in a plot, too."[5] In an earlier (1977) interview, she stated that "the real joy of writing is how people can surprise one. My people wander around my study until the novel is done. It's one reason I'm very careful not to write about people I don't like. If I find somebody creeping in that I'm not really fond of, I usually take him out."[5] Pollitt had even earlier noted how Tyler's characters seem to take on a life of their own that she doesn't seem to totally control: "Her complex, crotchety inventions surprise us, but one senses they surprise her too." [2]
Just as Tyler is difficult to categorize as a novelist, it is also challenging to label her style. Novelist Cathleen Schine describes how her "style without a style" manages to pull the reader into the story: "So rigorous and artful is the style without a style, so measured and delicate is each observation, so complex is the structure and so astute and open the language, that the reader can relax, feel secure in the narrative and experience the work as something real and natural -- even inevitable."[3] The San Francisco Chronicle made a similar point: "One does not so much read a Tyler novel as visit it. Her ability to conduct several conversations at once while getting the food to the table turns the act of reading into a kind of transport."[35] Reviewer Tom Shone put it this way: "You're involved before you ever notice you were paying attention."[36] Joyce Carol Oates, in her review of The Amateur Marriage, perhaps described the phenomenon best: "When the realistic novel works its magic, you won't simply have read about the experiences of fictitious characters, you will have seemed to have lived them; your knowledge of their lives transcends their own, for they can only live in chronological time. The experience of reading such fiction when it's carefully composed can be breathtaking, like being given the magical power of reliving passages of our own lives, indecipherable at the time of being lived."[37]
While Tyler herself does not like to think of her novels in terms of themes, numerous reviewers and scholars have noted the importance of family and marriage relationships to her characters and stories. Liesl Schillinger summarized: "Taken together, the distinct but overlapping worlds of her novels have formed a Sensurround literary record of the 20th century American family—or, at least, of the proud but troubled archetypal families that…interested her most."[38] Michiko Kakutani, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The New York Times, has been reviewing Tyler novels for over 25 years. She has frequently noted Tyler's themes with regard to family and marriage. Reviewing Noah's Compass, Kakutani states that "the central concern of most of this author's characters has always been their need to define themselves in terms of family — the degree to which they see themselves as creatures shaped by genetics, childhood memories and parental and spousal expectations, and the degree to which they are driven to embrace independent identities of their own.".[39] This is an example of where Anne Tyler got some of her characteristics from, being able to be independent and get to know herself through her writing.
Reviewing Saint Maybe, Jay Parini describes how Tyler's characters must deal with "Ms. Tyler's oddball families, which any self-respecting therapist would call 'dysfunctional'.... An inexplicable centripetal force hurls these relatives upon one another, catches them in a dizzying inward spiral of obligation, affection and old-fashioned guilt—as well as an inexpressible longing for some perfect or "normal" family in a distant past that never really was. Almost every novel by Anne Tyler begins with a loss or absence that reactivates in the family some primordial sense of itself."[40]Larry McMurtry wrote, "...in book after book, siblings are drawn inexorably back home, as if their parents or (more often) grandparents had planted tiny magnets in them which can be activated once they have seen what the extrafamilial world is like....sooner or later a need to be with people who are really familiar – their brothers and sisters – overwhelms them."[41]
Novelist Julia Glass has similarly written about Tyler's characters' families: "What makes each story distinctive is the particular way its characters rebel against hereditary confines, cope with fateful crises or forge relationships with new acquaintances who rock their world."[42] In the same way, Glass mentions the frequent role of marriage struggles in her work: "Once again, Tyler exhibits her genius for the incisive, savory portrayal of marriage, of the countless perverse ways in which two individuals sustain a shared existence."[42] McMurty puts it this way, "The fates of [Tyler's] families hinge on long struggles between semiattentive males and semiobsessed females. In her patient investigation of such struggles, Miss Tyler has produced a very satisfying body of fiction.[41]
Passage of time and the role of small, chance events[edit]
The role of the passage of time and its impact on Tyler's characters is always present. The stories in many of her novels span decades, if only by flashbacks. Joyce Carol Oates emphasized the role of time in this manner: "[Tyler's novels] move at times as if plotless in the meandering drift of actual life, it is time itself that constitutes "plot": meaning is revealed through a doubling-back upon time in flashes of accumulated memory, those heightened moments which James Joyce aptly called epiphanies. The minutiae of family life can yield a startling significance seen from the right perspective, as Tyler shows us."[37] With regard to those minutiae, Tyler herself comments: "As for huge events vs. small events: I believe they all count. They all reveal character, which is the factor that most concerns me….It does fascinate me, though, that small details can be so meaningful."[31]
Kakutani described Saint Maybe in a similar manner: "Moving back and forth among the points of view of various characters, Ms. Tyler traces two decades in the lives of the Bedloes, showing us the large and small events that shape family members' lives and the almost imperceptible ways in which feelings of familial love and obligation mutate over the years."[33] Again in her review of Breathing Lessons, Kakutani perceives that "she is able, with her usual grace and magnanimity, to chronicle the ever-shifting covenants made by parents and children, husbands and wives, and in doing so, to depict both the losses – and redemptions – wrought by the passage of time."[32] Tyler herself further weighs in upon how small events can impact relationships: "I love to think about chance -- about how one little overheard word, one pebble in a shoe, can change the universe...The real heroes to me in my books are first the ones who manage to endure."[43]
Tyler is not without her critics. The most common criticism is that her works are "sentimental," "sweet," and "charming and cosy."[6] John Blades, literary critic for the Chicago Tribune, skewered The Accidental Tourist (as well as all her earlier novels) as "artificially sweet" and "unrealistic."[44]The Observer's Adam Mars-Jones stated, in his review of The Amateur Marriage: "Tyler seems to be offering milk and cookies."[45] Kakutani has also occasionally bemoaned a "cloying cuteness," noting that "her novels—with their eccentric heroes, their homespun details, their improbable, often heartwarming plots—have often flirted with cuteness."[46]
In a recent interview, Tyler responded to such criticisms:"For one thing I think it is sort of true. I would say piss and vinegar for [Philip] Roth and for me milk and cookies. I can't deny it…. [However] there's more edge under some of my soft language than people realize."[6] Because almost all of Tyler's work covers the same territory—family and marriage relationships—and are located in the same setting, she has come under criticism for being repetitive and formulaic.[44][46] Reviewing The Patchwork Planet, Kakutani states: "Ms. Tyler's earlier characters tended to be situated within a thick matrix of finely nuanced familial relationships that helped define both their dreams and their limitations; the people in this novel, in contrast, seem much more like lone wolves, pulled this way and that by the author's puppet strings….Ms. Tyler's famous ability to limn the daily minutiae of life also feels weary and formulaic this time around….As for the little details Ms. Tyler sprinkles over her story…they, too, have a paint-by-numbers touch. They add up to a patchwork novel that feels hokey, mechanical . . . and yes, too cute.[46]
Tyler has also been criticized for her male characters' "Sad Sack" nature and their "lack of testosterone."[6] Tyler has disagreed with this criticism: "Oh that always bothers me so much. I don't think they are wimps. People are always saying we understand you write about quirky characters, and I think, isn't everybody quirky? If you look very closely at anybody you'll find impediments, women and men both."[6]
Over the last couple of decades, Tyler has been quite forthcoming about her work habits—both in written articles and in interviews. She is very disciplined and consistent about her work schedule and environment. She starts work in the early morning and generally works until 2 pm. Since she moved to the Roland Park neighborhood of Baltimore, she has used a small, orderly corner room in her house, where the only distractions are the sounds of "children playing outside and birds."[5][6] She has noted that at the beginning of her day, taking the first step—that is, entering her corner room—can be difficult and daunting. She begins her writing by reviewing her previous days' work and then by sitting and staring off into space for a time. She describes this phase of writing as an "extension of daydreaming," and it focuses on her characters.[5]
Over the years Tyler has kept files of note cards in which ideas and observations have been recorded. Characters, descriptions, and scenes often emerge from these notes.[5][14] She says the act of putting words to paper for her is a "very mechanical process," involving a number of steps: (1) writing first in long hand on unlined paper, (2) revising long hand versions, (3) typing the entire manuscript, (4) re-writing in long hand, (5) reading into a tape-recorder while listening for "false notes," (6) playing back into a stenographer's machine using the pause button to enter changes.[6] She can be quite organized, going so far as to map out floor plans of houses and to outline the chronology of all the characters in a given novel.[6]
Tyler's advice to beginning writers: "They should run out and buy the works of Erving Goffman, the sociologist who studied the meaning of gesture in personal interactions. I have cause to think about Erving Goffman nearly every day of my life, every time I see people do something unconscious that reveals more than they'll ever know about their interiors. Aren't human beings intriguing? I could go on writing about them forever."[31]
^ Liukkonen, Petri. "Anne Tyler". Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on August 8, 2014.
^ Jump up to:abcdefghijk Croft, Robert W. (1995), Anne Tyler: A bio-bibliography. Westport Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
^ Jump up to:abcd Tyler, Anne (1980), "Still Just Writing," reprinted in Sternberg, Janet (2000), The Writer on her Work, vol. 1, New York: W.W. Norton, pp. 3–16.
^ Evans, Elizabeth (1993), Anne Tyler New York: Twayne.
^ Updike, John (March 29, 1976). "Family Ways". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 1, 2015.
^ Tyler, Anne (March 1983), Morgan's Passing; Oates quoted in 1983 Berkley edition, New York: Berkley Publishing Group, p. 1.
^ Tyler, Anne (1998) "A Patchwork Planet: A Reader's Guide," IN Tyler, Anne (1998) A Patchwork Planet, Ballantine's Reader's Circle, New York: Ballantine Publishing Group.
^ Jump up to:abc Tyler, Anne (2013), "A conversation between Anne Tyler and Robb Forman Dew" in "The Beginner's Goodbye: A Reader's Guide". In Tyler, Anne (2013), The Beginner's Goodbye, Random House Reader's Circle, New York: Random House.