Noah's Compass (2010)

There's part of me that suspects Liam Pennywell, the protagonist in Anne Tyler's most recent novel (and her 18th overall, with a 19th scheduled for arrival this spring), is the closest approximation we may have to Tyler herself. The sadness at the core of Pennywell's life is occupied so expertly and with such gentle, telling detail, even a little more, I think, than we usually get from her. And even though he is a man. And even though he comes from the Macon Leary side of Tyler's typical gene pool. It ultimately makes sense to me that Tyler would be closer to Leary anyway than to Murial Pritchett—she is a private, reclusive writer who seems a natural for a dependence on routine. I know I could be reading too much into things I don't know anything about, but her novels since the death of her husband in the late '90s feel haunted to me by him, or by loss, in one way or another—the bitter rancor that drives Back When We Were Grownups, the sweeping perspective of a lifetime on a long-term marriage in The Amateur Marriage, and of course the Iranian characters in Digging to America. Here it feels like the sadness that occurs before acceptance—acceptance not only of the traumatizing event but of all the changes and loss it has inevitably brought. Liam Pennywell arrives at his early 60s virtually without a livelihood—a one-time graduate student in philosophy, his resume shows the decline of his fortunes, from his graduate studies to teaching high school to teaching 5th grade to, finally, a job in a preschool facility. This is not to say that his work has become less important—I can think of few things less important than graduate school philosophy—but certainly it's the way most will see it, and of that, certainly, Pennywell is all too aware. There's a last chance at love for him here too, after two failed marriages, one that ended in his wife's suicide and the other in divorce, which produced three daughters, one rather late in life. As always, the story is filled with the quirky life and charming delights that Tyler is so capable of delivering. But it's bittersweet, with decided emphasis on the first word in that compound, and utterly convincing for a man in Pennywell's position and at his time in life. Tyler is closing in on age 70 now and she does seem to have more to tell us all the time.

In case it's not at the library.