Clock Dance

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This story found me following Willa Drake through key moments in her life at the ages of 11, 21, 41, and 61, and it was a journey that elicited empathy from me. Her family has problems with one unreliable parent and the other a passive enabler. Willa’s sister Elaine is only 6 years old when the novel opens and Willa feels responsible for her well-being. Indeed, she takes on a sense that she is responsible for everyone. Now in 2017, as a remarried wife in Arizona, she received an unexpected call asking her to come care for her 9-year old granddaughter, Cheryl, whose mom, Denise, was shot in Baltimore. As it turns out, Denise is the ex-girlfriend of Sean, one of Willa’s sons. Though she has no grandchildren, has never met Denise or Cheryl, and isn’t particularly close with her sons, something compels Willa to say yes, so she flies across the country with her husband, Peter, in tow. When the time comes that someone reaches out for her help when they are in need, suddenly all those parts of her self begin to take on a new pattern – bright, sure, and strong. Willa is a kind and good person, a people-pleaser, only wanting what’s best for everyone, doing whatever she can to pitch in and help make things happen. She was a bit naive in general, but I found it hard not to like her, because of her genuine spirit.

Freedom, flight, oxygen, breath, space: these themes whistle

So many books out there focus on characters in unusual circumstances, or in the midst of major upheaval or adversity. Anne Tyler's books more often than not focus on average, everyday people, living life the way they always have, when something changes. She has the ability to make a "regular" person seem much more fascinating than they might in real life, but perhaps more than that, Tyler is the champion for misanthropes, curmudgeons, and those who dither rather than make decisions. She touched my heart and I cheered her on! It's never too late if you are willing to take a chance on life.And then Willa gets the phone call that upends everything. A woman in Baltimore, whom she’s never met, has found Willa’s number scrawled on a neighbour’s kitchen table. The neighbour, Denise, is the ex-girlfriend of Willa’s son, and she’s been shot in the leg. There is no one to look after Denise’s nine-year-old daughter, Cheryl. The caller has mistakenly assumed that Willa is the girl’s grandmother, and Willa doesn’t correct her. Anne Tyler, one of this country’s great artists, has spent 50 years and more than 20 novels on the subject, her beautiful, understated, humane tales so similar in shape and voice that taken together they have come to seem like a subtle and sublime mania, the author explaining the same idea to herself over and over again, marveling anew each time at its mysteries. A charming new novel of self-discovery and second chances from the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Spool of Blue Thread.

Clock (British group) - Wikipedia Clock (British group) - Wikipedia

I loved this novel because of how Anne Tyler’s deep explorations into the life and psyche of one woman led me to understand and relate to so many people I have known – and even to aspects of myself.

Media Reviews

Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II. Tenderly devastating . . . Affecting . . . A quiet but sharply feminist statement.” — Entertainment Weekly Anne Tyler is a master at writing about the ordinary in an extraordinary way. This is a beautifully told, thought-provoking novel that resonates with emotional depth. Terrific dialogue and well-developed quirky characters also makes it an endearing read. I read this book cover to cover in one day. I loved it. Anne Tyler simply gets women and understands their rich interior life. One of Tyler’s many fantastic strengths has always been her ability to manage a great number of characters in the same space, choreographing them to bounce off one another in ways that are both enthralling and convincing. But here, despite a somewhat unrewarding subplot about the shooting, and despite the promising appearance of a local doctor who, if this were an earlier Tyler novel, might have lured Willa from her dull golfer, the chit-chat all too easily descends into tedium.