What If Morning Ever Comes is about. The phrase is applied pretty much to any situation that is not real pleasant and seems to be going on and on forever, no end in sight, although in the book itself the phrase actually was said toward the end of a long, long night...
His name is Ben Joe Hawkes, and he's been surrounded by women his entire life. With a proud mother, an incorribible grandmother and a flock of busy sisters, Ben Joe has always been an outsider - and a worrier. Now he's come home from law school. And surprisingly enough, this crazy visit to the frontlines of his childhood home sends Ben Joe into an exhilarating battle with his own heart - where unforeseen love demands his surrender...
Now, IMO, this summary of the book doesn't even come close to capturing the feel of the book. The worry comes across very strongly, also the nature of Ben Joe, the caring side battling the worrying side, and the love they mention, well, I truly wonder how longlasting that love turns out to be...
I read two of her books, the most recent "The Ladder Years". I liked the story it kept your interest, but i think the end was less than tidy. I read Dinner At Homesick Resturant" and i could relate to that better. It was an story about an old woman looking back on her life and also how the others in her life looked at the same incidents that happened. I am reminded at how when i get together with my family how my sister will remember some thing in our past and i can't remember it at all or i remember some thing and vice versa. Anyway i liked the way the author puts these feelings and relationships in words.
One upon a time there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person," begins the first line of Back When We Were Grownups.
The woman is fifty-three-year-old Rebecca "Beck" Davitch. For decades she has been the matriarch of a family she inherited when her husband passed away.
I thought the book gave much thought especially to me who married so young( in college) and has wondered (not often) what if....
I started 'Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant' but couldn't get into it... too much conflict... maybe just my mood at the time...
I read 5 other books and then tried St. Maybe...
"The hero of the story is Ian Bedloe, a 17 year old boy who must deal with the guilt he feels after he- as he believes- causes the death of his brother. Searching for forgiveness, Ian finds religion at the Church of the Second Chance, and he is able to bring meaning to his life. The story is an interesting examination of organized religion, faith, and the roles they play in one's life."
An interesting story about attonement and redemption. I liked it a lot until the ending... it left me feeling like there was too much left unsaid... it never says if Ian finally found forgiveness and the peace which had eluded him most of his life...
posted by carci
about 1 month ago
I believe I've read everything by Anne Tyler, though I could've missed one or two (which would be good, something else out there to read.) Some are more conflict-ridden than others, like the Amateur Marriage. And some I've read twenty years ago, or more, so don't remember well enough to choose. And of course I was a different person 25 years ago. But Digging to America is a beautiful little book and I recommend it without reservations. It has the usual Baltimore types here, rendered in exquisite detail (I live in Baltimore and know the types), but the main character is an Iranian immigrant, and her interior life is exposed well by Tyler, and guarded well, to a fault, by the character. Her late husband was Iranian, and there is every reason to believe that she knows that subculture quite well. Whether it is accurately portrayed I can't vouch for, but it's interesting all the way. Mary
