Title : Ladder of Years
Author : Anne Tyler
Genre : Contemporary
Publisher : Vintage
Pages : 336
Rating : 4.5/5

Anne Tyler has written The Accidental Tourist, a book I haven’t read (but mean to) which was transformed into the fabulous film of the same name starring Geena Davis and William Hurt. Recently I tried to get into Anne Tyler’s Vinegar Girl but had to give up on the book after a few hours. So Ladder of Years is almost a sigh of relief – a lovely book I read into the wee hours of the night.

Delia Grinstead is the wife of Dr Sam Grinstead, and the mother to three now grown-up children. On their annual vacation to the beach which Delia has spent much effort planning, she walks off and away from her family. The act is spontaneous, but Delia does not return even after much time has passed and overtures have been made. The rift, and Delia cannot clearly identify it, may not ever heal.

Tyler’s writing reminds me of Richard Russo’s (the lovely Empire Falls is one of my favorites). Her words are un-complicated, but so astute. She doesn’t use flowery language, and I could read a paragraph, a page, 20 pages of straightforward prose without realizing that she is building pictures, making delicate tragic-comic observations, getting to the heart of the matter, without ever appearing to do so. Such skill!

In “Ladder of Years” she draws her characters with sympathy. Delia’s reasons for leaving are never firm or finite or expressed in definitive words, but we can sense her despair and sadness.

Sometimes she felt like a tiny gnat, whirring around her family’s edges.

Even though I can’t identify with Delia’s actions, I thoroughly sympathize with her. Tyler fleshes out her innermost thoughts and her vulnerabilities; the book made me weepy-eyed more than once. The end left me a little stumped, but then life is strange. Strange and sad.

Highly recommended.