** spoiler alert ** Over the years I've read all of Anne Tyler's books and have always enjoyed her masterful character development. I love the intimacy of knowing all of the thoughts and emotions of Tyler's protagonists. I recognize and resonate with the ordinariness and tangled, fraught lives of her characters.

Tyler's characters usually have a depressive bent, and "Noah's Compass" Liam Pennywell is true to that pattern. Forced into retirement at age 61, Liam decides to downsize and reduce expenses by moving to a smaller apartment. On Liam's first night in his new apartment an intruder attacks him. Liam awakens in a hospital bed and is amnestic of the event. Recovering the memory of what happened that night becomes Liam's preoccupation. His effort to recover that memory unexpectedly leads him to revisit moments in his life and memories that he had always avoided. Liam had experienced only the most glancing relationship with his own life. He had dodged the tough issues, avoided the conflicts and gracefully skirted adventure.

It's not until page 219 that the title "Noah's Compass" is addressed. Liam explained to his five-year old grandson that Noah's ark didn't need sails because Noah (like Liam) wasn't going anywhere. "There was nowhere TO go. He was just trying to stay afloat. He was just bobbing up and down, so he didn't need a compass, or a rudder, or a sextant..." Liam's life had always been about merely staying afloat, but as he looked back through memories he found himself ambushed by the recognition of the complexities and his impression that life in general was heartbreaking.

"Noah's Compass" isn't her strongest work, but as an addict to Anne Tyler's splendid writing I found the book to be a comfortable old friend and I enjoyed it.