Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler

A midlife fiction book recommendation

By the quirky author of The Accidental Tourist, a story about a midlife woman coming to understand who she is, after all these years, and being okay with it.

Rebecca, long widowed, is fifty-three years old. She lives in a big old Baltimore row house, grand on the outside and lovely when decorated for parties, if you don’t look too closely. Her husband died years ago, only six years after he married her and made her stepmother to his three daughters. Now she runs the family party business and cares for her elderly uncle-in-law. Everyone takes her for granted and she is very good at putting on a cheerful front, whether mediating family squabbles or encouraging fellowship at parties or gatherings. She’s dependable, cheery, and hard-working.

But she’s tired of being taken for granted. When she renews friendship with her old high school boyfriend, she has a chance to go back in time (in her mind) and reconsider where she has ended up. Is it good? Is she happy? Is the person she is now the real Rebecca, or has she been shaping herself this way for so long, to accommodate the needs of others, that she’s become merely a useful tool? Would there have been another version of herself that would have lived a “real” life, had Joe not come along and married her? Did he marry her to take care of his children and the family business?

Of course these questions resonate, and the answer, along with the way Rebecca processes this, is gratifying.

I had to go back and reread it, because Anne Tyler is such a good writer and I’m always trying to improve my craft. She does tend to go on sometimes, and her characters are often kooky (remember “The Accidental Tourist” also by her.) But there’s a wry and benevolent view of humans in all of her writing, which is enjoyable and reassuring. Recommended. Here’s the link on Amazon.