–The New York Times

“A book that should join those few that every literate person will have to read.”

–The Boston Globe

Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not of her memory. It was a Sunday night in 1944 when her husband left the little row house on Baltimore’s Calvert Street, abandoning Pearl to raise their three children alone: Jenny, high-spirited and determined, nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loves; the older son, Cody, a wild and incorrigible youth possessed by the lure of power and money; and sweet, clumsy Ezra, Pearl’s favorite, who never stops yearning for the perfect family that could never be his own.

Now Pearl and her three grown children have gathered together again–with anger, hope, and a beautiful, harsh, and dazzling story to tell.

“A novelist who knows what a proper story is . . . [Tyler is] not only a good and artful writer, but a wise one as well.”

–Newsweek

“Anne Tyler is surely one of the most satisfying novelists working in America today.”

–Chicago Tribune

“In her ninth novel she has arrived at a new level of power.”

–John Updike, The New Yorker

“Marvelous, astringent, hilarious, [and] strewn with the banana peels of love.”

–Cosmopolitan

Newsweek

The Boston Globe

Chicago Tribune

JOHN UPDIKE, The New Yorker

The New York Times

THE BOSTON GLOBE

Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not her memory. Ever since 1944 when her husband left her, she has raised her three very different children on her own. Now grown, they have gathered together--with anger, with hope, and with a beautiful, harsh, and dazzling story to tell....

From the Paperback edition.