I liked them better than their parents, the oldest girl is loud and bossy but she also tries to parent her sister when her parents seemed to be checked out. The Garrett kids actually turn into pretty good parents from what little we know and it's a surprise to me. Robin is on the other end of the stick, wondering where everyone went, trying to hide that he's alone, sort of floating until he fades away to nothing. She just does not care, she's in her own world, no longer responsible for anyone or anything and that's the way she likes it. She's even colder when she abandons an animal that relies on her totally. She leaves the life of wife and mother and becomes something else in such a cold way.

Mercy has been planning her escape from her family since before her son goes to college.

Both parents don't even care when their fifteen year old daughter meets a twenty one year old guy and spends her days and parts of her nights with him for a week. So self centered, selfish, apathetic to the feelings of others and the things going on in her children's lives. We go through the points of view of several family members and it was Mercy who put me off from enjoying the story more. Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts' influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation.įull of heartbreak and hilarity, French Braid is classic Anne Tyler: a stirring, uncannily insightful novel of tremendous warmth and humor that illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives, the impossibility of breaking free from those who love us, and how close-yet how unknowable-every family is to itself.įrench Braid by Anne Tyler, Kimberly Farr (Narrator)įrench Braid left me feeling sad although I do see that some people in the family are able to do better at reaching out and connecting than Robin and Mercy, parents of three children who went on to give them grandchildren. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family's orbit, for reasons none of them understand. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common.

Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author-a funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one Baltimore family's foibles, from a boyfriend with a red Chevy in the 1950s up to a longed-for reunion with a grandchild in our pandemic present.

French braid a novel