Both novels hinge on unusual scenarios that pair up older and younger generations. There are echoes of Clock Dance in her new book. A short book that gives a brilliantly detailed, tender depiction of one man's regrettable way of living, Redhead has a breezy style that is more akin to Vinegar Girl, Tyler's recent rewrite of The Taming of the Shrew for the Hogarth Shakespeare series, than it is to the titles that have made her a household name – Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, the Pulitzer-winning Breathing Lessons, Booker-nominated A Spool of Blue Thread, or last year's luminous Clock Dance. Redhead is no different in this respect, but it has a slighter feel to it than some of her masterpieces. Tyler is famous for writing extraordinary novels about ordinary people. He has a girlfriend that he likes well enough, and a big, brash extended family that he visits from time to time. He lives in Baltimore and makes a mediocre living as a computer technician. Micah is in many ways a classic Tyler character. And it’s almost certain nobody’s ever asked him.” Meet Micah Mortimer, the curmudgeonly, mid-40s protagonist of Anne Tyler’s latest novel Redhead by the Side of the Road. “Does he ever stop to consider his life? The meaning of it, the point? Does it trouble him to think that he will probably spend his next thirty or forty years this way? Nobody knows.
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