Clock Dance

by Anne Tyler

She was the only woman she knew whose prime objective was to be taken for granted.

This sentence sums up this book.

She pronounced “Caucasian” with careful delicacy, the way Willa might have pronounced…well, the way Willa might have pronounced “African-American.”

time.” But Willa knew what she meant. She had felt that way during her own childhood; she’d felt like a watchful, wary adult housed in a little girl’s body.

“My wife used to say that her idea of hell would be marrying Gandhi,”