French Braid : A Novel

French Braid by Anne Tyler is an unusual story. The first chapter has Serena and her beau heading back to college after visiting his parents for the first time. They are discussing Serena's family and how they are not a close-knit unit (she failed to recognize a cousin at the train station). The second chapter goes back in time to 1959 when the Garrett family took their first (and only) vacation. I felt the first chapter was a poor lead into the rest of the book. A prologue set in the present day told from David's point-of-view would have been a better way to start off French Braid. The rest of the book tells the story of the Garrett family. The characters were not developed. We are told about them, but the are not brought to life. We are not given enough details on any one of the family members. David is the most fleshed out character with Mercy a close second. I did not like Mercy at all. She is a selfish woman who never should have had children. Mercy preferred painting to dealing with her kids. I was shocked (some might consider this a spoiler) when she took the sweet cat and dropped it off at the shelter. She wanted peace restored to her studio (the cat made no noise and did not disturb her). I wish Mercy had taken the cat home to Robin (he would have liked a companion). Robin and Mercy are lucky none of their children were hurt by their lack of attention (especially Lily). They are fortunate that their children turned out to be good parents. The story spans from 1959 through the present day. The story meanders along going from one generation to the next. I felt the pacing was sluggish (snails move faster). I kept hoping something interesting would happen (anything to happen). I did not feel that the story came together as a whole. When I finished French Braid, I was left feeling that I had just wasted three hours of my time. I thought the story was depressing. Near the end, we see how the title ties into the story. It is a strange analogy that I would not see someone from the present day making (maybe in the early 80s when French braids were popular). French Braid was not my kind of book. I failed to get into the story, and I was not a fan of the characters. I had not read a book by Anne Tyler previously which is why I picked up French Braid (I have been trying to expand my horizons). While French Braid was not for me, it will appeal to other readers. I suggest you obtain a sample to see if it is your type of story. French Braid tells us about the Garrett family from Mercy and Robin down through the grandchildren.

"So this is how it works. This is what families do for each other - hide a few uncomfortable truths, allow a few self-deceptions. Little kindnesses. And little cruelties."

French Braid is the twenty-fourth novel by best-selling, award-winning American author, Anne Tyler. The Garrett family, people would tell you, is fairly unremarkable. They're living what they see as fairly unremarkable lives Baltimore. Yes, there are little quirks, minor grudges, small resentments, as in every family. But also love in its many manifestations.

To pique our initial interest, there's Serena Drew, meeting her (newish) boyfriend's Philadelphia parents. A chance encounter, on the journey home to Baltimore, with her cousin, draws attention to the fact that the Garretts don't see each other very much, unlike the boyfriend's sprawling family. To understand why, we need to go back to the late 1950s.

The Garret family on their one and only vacation, at Deep Creek Lake: Robin demonstrates his inexperience with relaxing; Mercy gets out her sketchbook and pencils and indulges in her art; seventeen-year-old Alice takes over the responsibility of feeding the family and watching over her siblings; at fifteen, Lily is quickly distracted from her sulk about leaving one boy behind by the attentions of another, older one, from whom she seems to expect a proposal; and David, to his father's frustration, is uninterested in the water, or learning to swim.

It is always such a pleasure to read a book by Anne Tyler, and this one has you chickling all the way through, unless you are laughing out loud or saying "oh, dear" or "oh, my", and once or twice, choking up or shedding a tear. Nothing terribly dramatic happens: readers wanting action and excitement need to look elsewhere; but Tyler's special talent is making ordinary lives shine.

Tyler is wonderful at character description: "It always puzzled Alice, how boys would flock to Lily. Oh, she was pretty enough, in a round-faced, dimply sort of way, but that didn't explain why they grew so alert when she walked into a room. It seemed she gave off some kind of high-pitched signal that only male ears could detect. (Grown men as well as boys. Alice had noticed more than one friend's father sending Lily the same sharp arrows of awareness.)"

As always, many of her characters are a little eccentric, but their observations on life are insightful at the same time as being amusing. Serena illustrates "I can criticise my family, but you can't"; Mercy tells her granddaughter "Sometimes people live first one life and then another life... First a family life and then later a whole other kind of life. That's what I'm doing" but she does it subtly to spare feelings from being hurt; Alice considers herself the sensible one, even if some see her as a killjoy.

Each of eight chapters is from the perspective of a different family member, giving their particular view of certain events or circumstances. If Lily's husband sees the Garretts as narrow and unfriendly and judgemental, it's not how they see themselves.

And Tyler's prose is a joy: "The only sounds in the studio were the whiskery strokes of their two brushes. She'd grown used to hearing old-people music but evidently Mercy preferred to work in silence, and Candle saw her point. Silence made what she was doing seem more important, somehow - more purposeful, almost like praying." Wonderful, as always!