false 31178 26 The first sentence of Anne Tyler's 15th novel sounds like something out of a fairy tale: "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person." Alas, this discovery has less to do with magic than with a late-middle-age crisis, which is visited upon Rebecca Davitch in the opening pages of <I>Back When We Were Grownups</I>. At 53, this perpetually agreeable widow is "wide and soft and dimpled, with two short wings of dry, fair hair flaring almost horizontally from a center part." Given her role as the matriarch of a large family--and the proprietress of a party-and-catering concern, the Open Arms--Rebecca is both personally and professionally inclined toward jollity. But at an engagement bash for one of her multiple stepdaughters, she finds herself questioning everything about her life: "How on earth did I get like this? How? How did I ever become this person who's not really me?"<p> She spends the rest of the novel attempting to answer these questions--and trying to resurrect her older, extinguished self. Should she take up the research she began back in college on Robert E. Lee's motivation for joining the Confederacy? More to the point, should she take up with her college sweetheart, who's now divorced and living within easy striking range? None of these quick fixes pans out exactly as Rebecca imagines. What she emerges with is a kind of radiant resignation, best expressed by 100-year-old Poppy on his birthday: "There <I>is</I> no true life. Your true life is the one you end up with, whatever it may be." A tautology, perhaps, but Tyler's delicate, densely populated novel makes it stick.<p> Yes, Poppy. There are also characters named NoNo, Biddy, and Min Foo--the sort of saccharine roll call that might send many a reader scampering in the opposite direction. But Tyler knows exactly how to mingle the sweet with the sour, and in <I>Back When We Were Grownups</I> she manages this balancing act like the old pro she is. Even the familiar backdrop--shabby-genteel Baltimore, which resembles a virtual game preserve of Tylerian eccentrics--seems freshly observed. Can any human being really resist this novel? It is, to quote Rebecca, "a report on what it was like to be alive," and an appealingly accurate one to boot. <I>--James Marcus</I> 2731250 2001 Back When We Were Grownups total:3180|5:338|4:1098|3:1276|2:384|1:84| 3180 10762 3956 329 3 4 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2003 Mon Aug 20 13:14:27 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 20 13:16:16 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 5 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 17 19:24:46 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 29 18:23:47 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 2 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Mar 21 06:38:08 -0700 2008 Fri Mar 21 06:45:21 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Wed Jan 02 13:12:52 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 02 13:13:18 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2001 Sun Nov 25 19:41:04 -0800 2007 Sun Nov 25 19:43:21 -0800 2007 Audible.com

Narrator: Blair Brown
Publisher: Random House AudioBooks, 2001
Length: 9 hours

Publisher's Summary
"Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered that she had turned into the wrong person." So Anne Tyler opens this irresistible...more...]]> 3 2 false false Sat Nov 15 14:21:19 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 15 14:38:29 -0800 2008
"Once upon a time, there was a woman who d...more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 21 07:26:34 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 21 13:29:29 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Thu Apr 10 12:26:01 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 10 12:33:45 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Fri Mar 28 11:05:23 -0700 2008 Fri Mar 28 11:09:08 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Aug 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 09 10:18:24 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 09 10:34:23 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jul 29 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 01 07:20:21 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 01 07:32:50 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false true Fri Jan 05 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Sat Jul 25 18:49:45 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 18:58:21 -0700 2009
Very subtle story about mid-life crisis fo the character, unsure whether...more...]]> 1 2 false false Tue Jan 08 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri May 15 11:50:23 -0700 2009 Fri May 15 11:51:00 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Oct 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 08 06:30:18 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 23 05:53:00 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu May 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 09 05:59:29 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 09 06:00:05 -0700 2009
This one s...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 10 19:19:42 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 10 19:35:43 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Sep 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 07 09:27:04 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 07 09:38:17 -0700 2009
In the past year, i've read/listened to Hanging Up and two other Tyler novels, and...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun May 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun May 17 17:04:22 -0700 2009 Sun May 17 17:10:32 -0700 2009
Moreover, Rebecca explores whether she ...more...]]> 2 1 false true Wed Jun 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu May 21 11:36:46 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 03 15:26:20 -0700 2009 1 Digging to America, The Amateur Marriage) I was really looking forward to Back When We Were Grownups. (I listened to it as an audiobook.) However, I was really disappointed with this book. I found the main character, Rebecca, to be annoying (for s...more...]]> 2 0 false false Thu May 14 11:05:10 -0700 2009 Thu May 14 11:13:45 -0700 2009 more...]]>