Anne Tyler: Author
Ranked #5,815 in Books, Poetry & Writing, #210,940 overall
An Author with Insight and a Funny Bone . . .
Tyler was a graduate of Duke University and did graduate studies at Columbia University. In 1988, her book Breathing Lessons won the Pulitzer Prize.
"II 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."
~ Anne Tyler ~
[NOTE: The book pictured to the left, Saint Maybe, was made into a Hallmark movie starring Blythe Danner, Edward Herrmann, Thomas McCarthy and Mary-Louise Parker.]
Newest Novel
Noah's Compass: A Novel
Amazon Price: $4.88 (as of 06/03/2012)
Tyler's novels insist there are no solutions to the mysteries of why people are the way they are. Life offers no answers. Yet there are, in the author's universe, lessons to be absorbed, more things to learn . . . (amazon reviewer: M J Ettner)
Born in Minneapolis MN
I never think about the actual process of writing. I suppose I have a superstition about examining it too closely.
~ Anne Tyler ~
The Novels
Read any of Tyler's books? Vote for your favorite . . .
Accidental Tourist, The
Macon Leary is a travel writer who hates both trav more...1 point
Breathing Lessons
The author of the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winn more...1 point
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Eighty-five-year-old Pearl Tull recalls the desert more...1 point
Patchwork Planet
Anne Tyler's 14th novel tells the story of Barnaby more...1 point
Amateur Marriage, The
Marrying quickly during World War II after falling more...0 points
Back When We Were Grownups
Beck Davitch looks back on her thirty-year marriag more...0 points
Celestial Navigation
To read Anne Tyler is to fall in love". (Peop more...0 points
The Clockwinder
A young woman named Elizabeth, who likes machinery more...0 points
Digging to America
Two very different families, the sprawling Donalds more...0 points
Earthly Possessions
A simple trip to the bank turns into a grand adven more...0 points
If Morning Ever Comes
A touchingly funny tale from the Pultizer Prize-wi more...0 points
Ladder of Years
Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead is last seen stroll more...0 points
Morgan's Passing
A tinkering, puttering sort of man, Morgan Gower w more...0 points
Searching for Caleb
Duncan Peck is a restless man, constantly moving h more...0 points
Slipping Down Life
Evie Decker is a shy, slightly plump teenager with more...0 points
Tin Can Tree, The
A small-town family is hopelessly out of step with more...0 points
Quaker Roots
Anne Tyler, the daughter of Quakers, had a somewhat nomadic childhood. She lived in places such as Chicago; Duluth, Minnesota; and Cleo, North Carolina (where her family lived in an experimental collective community in the mountains).
I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get.
~ Anne Tyler ~
Movie: Back When We Were Grownups
Based on Anne Tyler's Book
Back When We Were Grownups
Amazon Price: $14.18 (as of 06/03/2012)
Stars: Academy Award-winners Faye Dunaway (Network) & Jack Palance (City Slickers), Tony Award-winner Blythe Danner (Butterflies Are Free), Academy Award-nominee Peter Fonda (Easy Rider) and Peter Riegert (Traffic).
In this quirky story revolves around a widow who is contemplating what her life would have been like if she had married someone else and calls her ex-boyfriend to see if she can rekindle the old flame and spice up her life . . .
Anne's Thoughts
about writers . . .
Moved to Raleigh at age 11
Tyler's Occupations
LIBRARIAN
BIBLIOGRAPHER
NOVELIST
SHORT STORY WRITER
People always call it luck when you've acted more sensibly than they have.
~ Anne Tyler ~
Movie: The Accidental Tourist
Based on Anne Tyler's Book
The Accidental Tourist
Amazon Price: $14.84 (as of 06/03/2012)
William Hurt plays a depressed travel writer struggling to come to terms with his son's death. He buys a dog for companionship, then hires an eccentric dog trainer (Geena Davis, who won an Oscar for her role) to teach it to behave. She, in turn, teaches him to reconnect to life. But as he is beginning to admit his feelings for her to himself, he is blindsided by the return of his estranged wife (Kathleen Turner), who attempts to rekindle their marriage. (Marshall Fine)
Anne's Thoughts
about writing . . .
Anne Tyler Links
- Anne Tyler
- American novelist and short-story writer, whose keen ear for dialogue and life-like characters have won critical acclaim. Several of Tyler's novels have been set in Baltimore and focus on middle-class families, their secrets, ambitions, dreams, and crises. Among Tyler's best-known books . . .
- Anne Tyler digs writing, puttering
- Prolific but very private, author Anne Tyler, 64, who lives in Baltimore, has not given a sit-down interview or gone on a book tour since 1977. She answered questions sent to her via email by USA TODAY . . .
- An Interview With Anne Tyler About Patchwork Planet
- Your protagonist in this novel, Barnaby Gaitlin, has been described as an average, ordinary man. Is this how you would describe him?
Tyler: 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. - Reading Anne Tyler
- For me Tyler is as good as any contemporary writer in the English language that I've read. That means she's as good as Cormac McCarthy and Philip Roth. I can't understand why a man wouldn't want to read her books.
- Review: The Amateur Marriage
- The novel begins in late 1941 and continues on through 2001, although it never falls victim to the "and then this happened, and then this happened" syndrome. Other Tyler books reviewed also.
- Meet the Writers
- Anne Tyler has had a very active imagination all her life. When she was a young girl, she would spend an hour or two after being put to bed every night fantasizing that she was a doctor. She imagined conversations with patients . . .
- Breathing Lessons
- A summary and study guide.
It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.
~ Anne Tyler ~
Family Influence
from a NY Times book review by LIESL SCHILLINGER Published: May 21, 2006
A writer like Tyler can hardly have been immune to family influence herself. But her inner circle has narrowed. Her husband, the Iranian-born psychiatrist Taghi Modarressi, died nearly 10 years ago, and in January her mother, Phyllis Tyler, an ardent social activist, died at the age of 88. Her obituary in the Raleigh News & Observer reads eerily like a précis of one of her daughter's novels. In the 1930's, she picketed in support of coal miners; in the 1940's, she married and moved with her husband to a commune, where they raised goats and organic vegetables; in the 1960's, she protested against the Vietnam War; in the 1970's, she and her husband took up residence in the Middle East, helping refugees in Gaza; in the 1980's, she fought the death penalty, advocated for battered women and wrote newspaper articles about everyday heroes, like a singing trash man.
How could a writer's character not be imprinted by such a presence?
Movie: Slipping Down Life
A Slipping Down Life
Amazon Price: $2.85 (as of 06/03/2012)
Guy Pearce (Memento) and Lili Taylor (Six Feet Under) prove inspired casting for this otherwise mixed adaptation of Anne Tyler's novel. Taylor is Evie, a shy young woman stuck in a dead-end job (she wears a rabbit costume at a kiddie park) and living with her withdrawn father (Tom Bower). Something leaps to life in Evie when she hears the music of local wannabe rock star "Drum" Casey (Pearce), and she begins to live for his success--not as a groupie, but as a deeply stirred convert. (amazon)
She raised a family in Baltimore, MD
I've always thought a hotel ought to offer optional small animals. I mean a cat to sleep on your bed at night, or a dog of some kind to act pleased when you come in. You ever notice how a hotel room feels so lifeless?
~ Anne Tyler ~
Comments and Feedback Welcome!
. . . and please take a moment to rate this lens!
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JoolsObsidian
Jul 25, 2011 @ 5:35 pm | delete
- Great lens, I love Anne Tyler and look forward to her next book.
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Spook
Jun 6, 2011 @ 5:44 pm | delete
- Enthralled, loved it. Tastefully done.
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puerdycat
Mar 29, 2011 @ 2:05 pm | delete
- Loved "Accidental Tourist" and, more so, "Saint Maybe" and last year discovered "Ladder of Years." Thanks for this, I'm due for another!
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mom247 Nov 28, 2010 @ 11:25 pm | delete
- I love, love, love Anne Tyler. I have read every one of her novels. If anyone in the world makes me want to learn to write it's her. Love this lens, thank you.
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puerdycat
Mar 29, 2011 @ 2:06 pm | delete
- Great thought, Tyler makes me want to write, too!
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The writer . . .
Anne Tyler as Novelist
Amazon Price: $11.95 (as of 06/03/2012)
Learn more about Anne Tyler, the writer.
Learn more about Anne Tyler
Anne Tyler: A Bio-Bibliography (Bio-Bibliographies in American Literature)
Amazon Price: $72.95 (as of 06/03/2012)
This book is a solid introduction to her life and work. It includes the first biography of Tyler, along with a record of her writings and the response to her work.
