“Having read everything she's written and long-smitten with her airy, silky style, I feel as if Anne Tyler and I are almost friends. Sadly, her latest celebration of daily life - Digging to America - is the end of our relationship, and through no fault of hers. It's only that her last few books seems settled into a dreary sameness; I feel I'm reading one very long family letter. Tyler's magic, after all, is that the reader invariably finds characters they recognize from their own lives. Digging to America is no different, and that's the growing problem. I simply can not dredge up much interest any longer in babies with pacifiers, fallen elms, everyday chit-chat, and endless family parties. I will always treasure reading her earlier works. I will always admire her elegant prose.
But I stopped reading my copy of Aunt Edna's New Year's letter in 1998. ”
wobbly wrote this review Tuesday, January 2, 2007.
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