Detailed item info | Synopsis | Anne Tyler's 15th novel takes us into the life of Rebecca and the noisy, rowdy, difficult members of the Davitch family. When Rebecca marries Joseph Davitch, she becomes the stepmother of his three kids, then has a daughter of her own. Her husband dies in a car crash, after which yet more Davitches come to live with her. Somehow, Rebecca--in the midst of her own troubles--holds it all together, but, she begins to suspect, at the cost of her own self. A New York Times Notable Book for 2001.
| | Details | | Series: | Ballantine Reader's Circle |
| | Size | | Length: | 273 pages | | Height: | 8.0 in. | | Width: | 5.5 in. | | Thickness: | 0.8 in. | | Weight: | 8.8 oz. |
| | Publisher's Note | Beck Davitch looks back on her thirty-year marriage to Joe and her role as a mother and manager of the Open Arms, wondering if she is living the life she was meant to live and reconsidering her dedication to the family business.
| | Industry reviews | "[M]aybe there's something glorious to be said, after all, for companionship, common cause and sanctuary. And what there is to say, Anne Tyler has been saying for decades, with gravity and grace."
New York Times Book Review - John Leonard (05/20/2001)
"As the register for the truism that home is best, BACK WHEN WE WERE GROWNUPS is wittily and even movingly plotted--its message is that we are all in the grip of a cloying fatality that knows us better than we know ourselves....But Tyler's novels may be said to be family romances not only because their topic is family life, and their attitude towards this topic comedic, but because, in their observance of the minutiae of that life, they raise in readers an initially appealing but finally appalling ennui....[T]he strength of her work--and what makes it popular--is also its absolute flaw. For there has to be a limit to the amount of 'true-to-life' family drama that anyone can take, either in fiction or in reality; and there has to come a point when even Tyler's most devoted readers will begin to feel that there is more to life than she offers."
Times Literary Supplement - Juliet Fleming (06/15/2001)
"Tyler handles the journey of middle-aged discovery with sure skill. What might have been mawkish is not even sentimental. The touch is light, the humour of the gentle kind that arises out of humdrum lives....Tyler's fans will probably recognize the ingredients and immediately know that the recipe will work...."
Literary Review - Jane Charteris (06/20/2001)
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