Celestial Navigation (1974)

I liked Anne Tyler's fifth novel, full of all the usual stuff—Baltimore, a repressed man hero, a nurturing extrovert woman for his partner. It's a little experimental in form but solidly constructed. The experimental part is that each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character, sometimes first-person, sometimes third-person. Our repressed man hero, Jeremy Pauling, lives in a rooming house his mother operated, taking it over after she dies at the start of the novel. He really is an extreme case, nearly autistic in his affect, much more damaged than the charming eccentrics Tyler would produce later (damaged as they may be). Jeremy's girlfriend Mary moves into his place on the rebound from a rebound relationship following a divorce. She's big and loud and competent and gives birth to six kids in the space of this novel. Jeremy is the father of the last five, but he's such an abstracted figure to them they all call him by his name rather than Dad or even Daddy. Conveniently enough, he's able to make a living as a fine artist—a gallery owner takes him under his wing and Jeremy's work catches on. Most of the pleasure in this is Tyler's language and her usual sharp eye and ear. Small details unexpectedly swim off the page and hit hard. I had my usual trouble always believing the easy way Tyler characters survive and fall together. Her faith in love and relationships can be romantic verging on sentimental. Yet something about the story of Jeremy and Mary tugs hard. Notably, I did not expect it to end the way it did. In fact, the zigging and zagging of the plot is often unexpected, yet never outlandish. Part of this is achieved by her narrative strategy. By shifting the points of view steadily, large events in the story often happen offstage. The story may lurch a little with each new chapter, but the novel is effective and moves with confidence. There's a quick tempo and a steady, grabby momentum. I've been reading my way through the novels from the first half of Tyler's career backward, and it's interesting to see some of the work losing focus in a way. Jeremy is not as sharp as Macon Leary and Mary is not as sharp as Muriel Pritchett, but they are certain foundations for those characters. And Celestial Navigation bears interest on its own merits as definitely one of the good ones.

In case it's not at the library.