Synopses & Reviews
"Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered that she had turned into the wrong person." So Anne Tyler opens this irresistible new novel.
The woman is Rebecca Davitch, a fifty-three-year-old grandmother. Is she an impostor in her own life? she asks herself. Is it indeed her own life? Or is it someone elses?
On the surface, Beck, as she is known to the Davitch clan, is outgoing, joyous, a natural celebrator. Giving parties is, after all, her vocation—something she slipped into even before finishing college, when Joe Davitch spotted her at an engagement party in his familys crumbling nineteenth-century Baltimore row house, where giving parties was the family business. What caught his fancy was that she seemed to be having such a wonderful time. Soon this large-spirited older man, a divorcé with three little girls, swept her into his orbit, and before she knew it she was embracing his extended family plus a child of their own, and hosting endless parties in the ornate, high-ceilinged rooms of The Open Arms.
Now, some thirty years later, after presiding over a disastrous family picnic, Rebecca is caught un-awares by the question of who she really is. How she answers it—how she tries to recover her girlhood self, that dignified grownup she had once been—is the story told in this beguiling, funny, and deeply moving novel.
As always with Anne Tylers novels, once we enter her world it is hard to leave. But in Back When We Were Grownups she so sharpens our perceptions and awakens so many untapped feelings that we come away not only refreshed and delighted, but also infinitely wiser.
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis in 1941 but grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University. This is Anne Tylers fifteenth novel;
her eleventh, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore.
From the Hardcover edition.
Reading Group Guide
It is upon Peter's second disappearance during the picnic that Rebecca first thinks: "How on earth did I get like this? How? How did I ever become this person who's not really me?" (p. 20, lines 33-34). Why does Rebecca's "identity crisis" begin at this particular moment in her life?
1. It is upon Peter's second disappearance during the picnic that Rebecca first thinks: "How on earth did I get like this? How? How did I ever become this person who's not really me?" (p. 20, lines 33-34). Why does Rebecca's "identity crisis" begin at this particular moment in her life?
2. Did Rebecca "choose" her life, or is her life just an example of Poppy's observation: "Your true life is the one you end up with, whatever it may be. You just do the best you can with what you've got"? (p. 252, lines 1-2). Do people choose their identities, or do they just "end up" the way they are?
3. Rebecca asks her client: "Mrs. Border, have you ever stopped to consider what a marvelous purpose a party serves?" (p. 38, lines 17-18). How does Rebecca answer her own question? Would she answer it differently at the end of the novel?
4. What is the significance of Rebecca's "Freudian slip"--if it can be called that--when she tells Zeb that she is a "superficial" woman, when she really means "superfluous"? Is Rebecca either "superfluous" or "superficial"? Is superfluous a word one could use to describe any character in the book?
5. "[Zeb] had a theory that Min Foo's many marriages were her way of trying on other lives" (p. 29, lines 34-35). Is this the same as what Rebecca is trying to do? Is this a universal fantasy that Rebecca is living out? What might be Tyler's opinion of one trying to "go back to take the other fork in the road" or "trying on different lives" ? What other examples can you find in Back When We Were Grownups that provide different ways to think about or define the concept of identity?
6. The opening words of the novel, "Once upon a time . . . ," recall the motif used in fables or fairy tales. In what ways does Back When We Were Grownups resemble a fairy tale or contain elements of the fairy tale or fable? Does Back When We Were Grownups have a moral?
7. Rebecca realizes the irony of the fact that the more she does for her family, the less she is appreciated. "It had occurred to her, often, that the way to win your family's worshipful devotion was to abandon them" (p. 87, lines 17-18). The reader learns a lot about how "Beck" feels about her family--but how does her family feel about her? Does it matter to Rebecca whether her family appreciates her or not? What does the book suggest about how family members treat one another generally in society?
8. How is marriage portrayed in Back When We Were Grownups? Are there marriages of convenience, or are there examples of marriage where both parties to the marriage are equally "useful" to each other, as Rebecca advises NoNo on her marriage to Barry (p. 246, lines 31-32)? Is Rebecca's advice to NoNo convincing to the reader? To Rebecca herself? Why do marriages fail: Joe and Tina's, Will and Laura's, and Min Foo's first two marriages?
9. How would you compare the different types of love explored in the book? With respect to Poppy, Rebecca observes: "Apparently you grow to love whom you're handed" (p. 157, lines 1-2). Is this applicable to the love Rebecca has for any of the other people in her life? In the case of her sons-in-law, Rebecca had promised that she would treat them differently than her mother treated Joe, and "she had kept her promise so faithfully that now she couldn't say for certain whether she truly loved her sons-in-law or merely thought she did" (p. 144, lines 23-25). Is there a practical difference for Rebecca? How do the other characters love Rebecca?
10. What is the significance of Tyler's ending the tale with Poppy's hundredth birthday party? What is really being celebrated?
11. Is the ending of Back When We Were Grownups anticlimactic or satisfying? Is the reader mad at or frustrated with Rebecca, or proud of her? At what point does the reader come to "recognize" the "real" Rebecca?
12. Can Rebecca be described as a heroine? A martyr? Is she an ordinary or extraordinary woman? When she realizes that she has brought the Davitches her "joyousness . . . [which] she had struggled to acquire . . . Timidly, she experimented with a sneaking sense of achievement. Pride, even" (p. 246, lines 31-36, to p. 247, lines 1-4). Is this her greatest achievement? What are Rebecca's failures?
13. Is there significance to Rebecca's dream about the boy on the train (p. 21, lines 1-17)? Why does she realize that Peter was the boy on the train at the moment that she does (p. 273, lines 32-33)? Is Peter her chance at creating a new life or identity? Is Rebecca's dream a metaphor for her "identity crisis," and, if so, what does it tell us about how seriously to take her "identity crisis"?
14. What does "The Open Arms" symbolize? Is the name of Rebecca's house intended to be ironic? How might the dynamic of the Davitch family be different if their family business were something other than running a party facility out of their home?
15. How does Tyler develop the characters in her novel? Compare how certain characters, such as Poppy and Rebecca's mother, speak a lot, and others, such as Peter, say very little. How much do we learn about some of the lesser characters by the few words they say in the novel? How is Rebecca's character developed differently than the other characters?
16. What is the meaning of the title (p. 188, lines 11-17)? What does it mean to be "grownup," and can Rebecca or any of the other characters be described as "grownups"?
17. Does the concept of "family" defy definition in Back When We Were Grownups? Might the reader wonder how Rebecca came to be so accepting of all of the assorted people she welcomes easily into her family? Is she rebelling against her own mother's intolerance, or simply filling the void of her lonely childhood?
18. For Rebecca, "the most memorable of the five senses . . . was the sense of touch" (p. 34, lines 28-29). The sense of taste also figures prominently in the book, invoked by the descriptions of the food served to Rebecca (p. 64, lines 8-9; p. 131; and p. 205) and Biddy's gourmet foods. What does Tyler achieve stylistically by invoking these senses, or any of the other three senses?
19. How would you characterize the conversations Rebecca has with her grandchildren? What do they reveal about Rebecca? For example: Rebecca tells Merrie about her dream (p. 49, lines 13-14), and she discusses Poppy's birthday party with Peter (p. 117, lines 20-35).
20. What is the significance of the descriptions of the lives and families of the workmen who frequent The Open Arms? Are they merely humorous interludes, or is their placement in the novel significant to Rebecca's progress in her search for her identity?
21. Is Tyler's choice of the motives of Robert E. Lee as the topic of Rebecca's college research project intended to be humorous? Ironic? Is Rebecca's realization about Lee's motives analogous to her own self-recognition, and, if it does invite such comparison, what does that tell the reader about how to view Rebecca's identity crisis? (p. 232, lines 6-23)
22. How do Tyler's descriptions of Baltimore, the scenery during the drive from Baltimore to Macadam (pp. 127-28), and the town of Church Valley, Virginia (pp. 57-61), affect the atmosphere and mood of the novel? Do they reinforce any themes of the novel? Is Rebecca's life like the once elegant street of Baltimore that "never reverses" (p. 47, line 1)?
23. What are Will's good qualities? Does the reader sympathize with Will? Like him or dislike him? What happened at the family dinner that made Rebecca "end it" with Will that night (p. 218, lines 6-8)? Is Will in fact the one who was "superfluous"?
24. In several places, two characters' conversational paths converge. (For example, p. 64, lines 30-31.) Where else does Tyler use this style to convey how people talk to each other--but don't seem to really hear each other? Are these realistic conversations? What does it tell us about the way people communicate?
25. How does Tyler achieve a balance between the celebratory and the mournful in Back When We Were Grownups? Does one tone dominate the other?
26. Rebecca frequently feels that she is untrue to her own nature. (For example, p. 183, lines 14-15; p. 69, line 24; and p. 162, lines 25-) Is Rebecca really a "fraud" (p. 39, lines 28-29), or is this a common character trait?
27. Rebecca explains that she refers to Min Foo as her daughter but still refers to the other girls as stepdaughters because "acquiring" stepdaughters was the most profound change in her life (p. 234, lines 15-27). Are any of the other characters shaped by such profound events in their lives? Is Rebecca's a typical or understandable way people deal with such profound life changes, or does it say something unusual or significant about Rebecca and her own situation?
28. When Rebecca and Tina discuss Joe's poor driving, Rebecca recalls Joe's bout with depression and the reader glimpses a little crack in the veneer of Rebecca's perfect memories of Joe (p. 97). Dare we think that Joe's death was a suicide like his father's, and, if the thought occurs to us, doesn't it occur to Rebecca too? Might there have been more "bad" memories that Rebecca has blocked out?
Author Q&A
Q: What was the genesis of this novel? Did a particular characteror situation come to mind first?
AT: I plotted Back When We Were Grownups just after emerging
from a year in which there had been several losses and serious illnesses
in my family. I wanted my next novel to be full of joy and
celebration, which is how I ended up with a main character who
earned her living throwing parties.
That a sense of loss shows through anyway, at a later point in
the book, is proof that the subconscious always tends to triumph in
the end.
Q: Why did you choose this title for the novel? Were there others
that you discarded along the way?
AT: It's one of my few organic, natural-born titles; it was always
there, on its own
Q: Has Rebecca really become the wrong person?
AT: Well, of course she's become a different person. But not the
wrong one, as it turns out.
Q: Why is it so difficult for Rebecca to see that she chose Joe
and the Davitches just as they chose her?
AT: Rebecca is no more astute--or less--than most of us about her
reasons for doing things. If people were fully conscious of their
motives, novelists wouldn't have anything to write novels about.
Q: Would you agree that Rebecca is unaware, on some important
level, that she has become the center of the Davitch family?
AT: Yes. She's a very modest and unassuming woman; it wouldn't
occur to her that she could be so important to other people.
Q: Has Rebecca finally come to terms with the family and the
life she ended up with? Will she ever stop feeling like an outsider,
like a not-a-Davitch?
AT: The point at which I decide a novel is finished is the point
where I say, "My character has arrived, and I can picture him or her
more or less settled there forever." So yes, by the end of the book
she has come to terms with her life. (She's still not-a-Davitch, but
that's immaterial.)
Q: Did Rebecca ever have a chance to truly mourn Joe, given
the incredible responsibilities that were thrust upon her with his
death?
AT: Even with all those responsibilities, she did mourn--but I
think of it as a kind of stupor of mourning, unlike the more
reflective kind of grief that she experiences toward the end of the
novel.
Q: Poppy refuses to hide his grief over his dead wife, which perturbs
many of the Davitches. Is his behavior, like the constant
reciting of Aunt Joyce's funeral poem, troubled or simply
honest?
AT: I certainly didn't mean to imply he was troubled. This is his
particular response to loss--the opposite, or maybe the underside,
of Rebecca's response to her own loss.
Q: Rebecca thinks she would have stayed with Will if Joe had
not swept her off her feet. Was this a likely scenario?
AT: That's the kind of question I trust readers to know the answer
to once they've read the novel.
Q: "Their [Rebecca and Will's] past was a bolt of fabric they had
scissored up and divided between them." What do they gain
from their exchange of memories?
AT: It's more a question of what the reader gains: a sense, I hope, of
how fractured and subjective our interpretation of our past is.
Q: Could the Davitches--all of them--have helped Will open
up to the world? Or is it too late for him?
AT: Some people really are not capable of change. I think Will is
one of them. Any effort the Davitches might have made would
probably have just overwhelmed him.
Q: Rebecca's treatment of Will--rejecting him for a second time
after inviting him into her life--could be considered cruel. Do
you agree?
AT: It was painful, yes. ("Cruel" implies too much of an intent to
give pain.) I felt downright guilty when I wrote that scene. But for
Rebecca to have stayed with him would have been even more
painful. Sometimes, you just have to make that choice.
Q: We know how Zeb feels, but it is unclear how Rebecca feels
about him. Might something romantic ever happen between the
two of them?
AT: Someday, Zeb and Rebecca are going to marry. The Davitches
will be taken aback at first, but they'll warm to the idea wholeheartedly
as soon as they've adjusted.
Q: Rebecca reflects that "there were no perfect parties." Why
are people, like so many of the Davitches, often unwilling to recognize
how much hard work celebrations are?
AT: It wasn't the hard work of celebrations that I had in mind;
it was the fact that there is no perfect event, period--that
every human interaction is necessarily a mixed and mingled
affair.
Q: Rebecca's disapproving mother continues to exert a powerful
influence over her as does Rebecca over her daughters. Is it possible
to ever stop being your parent's child or your child's
parent?
AT: Yes, on occasion. But for a novelist the people who don't stop
are much more interesting.
Q: Do you ever find yourself getting angry at or having trouble
writing for thorny and difficult characters like Patch and
Rebecca's mother?
AT: In real life I might be very annoyed by some of my characters. I
find it a great deal easier to be tolerant of them on paper.
Q: Once you have created a fictional universe, is it hard to turn
it over to the rest of the world? Do you feel protective of your
characters?
AT: I always have a spell of maternal anxiety when a manuscript is
finally on its way to New York (where, for the first time, someone
other than me will see it). I picture my characters riding the train,
independent of me at last, excited and shy and unsure of themselves.
But once they've arrived and been accepted, I tend to forget
about them.
Q: If you had to choose a favorite character in this novel,
besides Rebecca, which would it be and why?
AT: I'm very fond of Peter. I like his curiosity and is active mind; I
think he's going to grow up to be a very interesting young man.
Q: What other books would you suggest for a reading group discussion?
AT: The most rewarding choice for reading groups would be a book
that they could argue about passionately among themselves.
Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children,for instance--people
have always loved that book or hated it. It could make for a
wonderfully lively discussion.
Q: Are you working a new novel?
AT: I'm in the early stages of a novel about an unhappy marriage--
a subject that intrigues me because it provides such a good opportunity
to watch different types of characters grating against each
other. It begins in 1941, and I'm finding it an unexpected pleasure
to live in another time for a while.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Q: What was the genesis of this novel? Did a particular characteror situation come to mind first?
AT: I plotted Back When We Were Grownups just after emerging
from a year in which there had been several losses and serious illnesses
in my family. I wanted my next novel to be full of joy and
celebration, which is how I ended up with a main character who
earned her living throwing parties.
That a sense of loss shows through anyway, at a later point in
the book, is proof that the subconscious always tends to triumph in
the end.
Q: Why did you choose this title for the novel? Were there others
that you discarded along the way?
AT: It's one of my few organic, natural-born titles; it was always
there, on its own
Q: Has Rebecca really become the wrong person?
AT: Well, of course she's become a different person. But not the
wrong one, as it turns out.
Q: Why is it so difficult for Rebecca to see that she chose Joe
and the Davitches just as they chose her?
AT: Rebecca is no more astute--or less--than most of us about her
reasons for doing things. If people were fully conscious of their
motives, novelists wouldn't have anything to write novels about.
Q: Would you agree that Rebecca is unaware, on some important
level, that she has become the center of the Davitch family?
AT: Yes. She's a very modest and unassuming woman; it wouldn't
occur to her that she could be so important to other people.
Q: Has Rebecca finally come to terms with the family and the
life she ended up with? Will she ever stop feeling like an outsider,
like a not-a-Davitch?
AT: The point at which I decide a novel is finished is the point
where I say, "My character has arrived, and I can picture him or her
more or less settled there forever." So yes, by the end of the book
she has come to terms with her life. (She's still not-a-Davitch, but
that's immaterial.)
Q: Did Rebecca ever have a chance to truly mourn Joe, given
the incredible responsibilities that were thrust upon her with his
death?
AT: Even with all those responsibilities, she did mourn--but I
think of it as a kind of stupor of mourning, unlike the more
reflective kind of grief that she experiences toward the end of the
novel.
Q: Poppy refuses to hide his grief over his dead wife, which perturbs
many of the Davitches. Is his behavior, like the constant
reciting of Aunt Joyce's funeral poem, troubled or simply
honest?
AT: I certainly didn't mean to imply he was troubled. This is his
particular response to loss--the opposite, or maybe the underside,
of Rebecca's response to her own loss.
Q: Rebecca thinks she would have stayed with Will if Joe had
not swept her off her feet. Was this a likely scenario?
AT: That's the kind of question I trust readers to know the answer
to once they've read the novel.
Q: "Their [Rebecca and Will's] past was a bolt of fabric they had
scissored up and divided between them." What do they gain
from their exchange of memories?
AT: It's more a question of what the reader gains: a sense, I hope, of
how fractured and subjective our interpretation of our past is.
Q: Could the Davitches--all of them--have helped Will open
up to the world? Or is it too late for him?
AT: Some people really are not capable of change. I think Will is
one of them. Any effort the Davitches might have made would
probably have just overwhelmed him.
Q: Rebecca's treatment of Will--rejecting him for a second time
after inviting him into her life--could be considered cruel. Do
you agree?
AT: It was painful, yes. ("Cruel" implies too much of an intent to
give pain.) I felt downright guilty when I wrote that scene. But for
Rebecca to have stayed with him would have been even more
painful. Sometimes, you just have to make that choice.
Q: We know how Zeb feels, but it is unclear how Rebecca feels
about him. Might something romantic ever happen between the
two of them?
AT: Someday, Zeb and Rebecca are going to marry. The Davitches
will be taken aback at first, but they'll warm to the idea wholeheartedly
as soon as they've adjusted.
Q: Rebecca reflects that "there were no perfect parties." Why
are people, like so many of the Davitches, often unwilling to recognize
how much hard work celebrations are?
AT: It wasn't the hard work of celebrations that I had in mind;
it was the fact that there is no perfect event, period--that
every human interaction is necessarily a mixed and mingled
affair.
Q: Rebecca's disapproving mother continues to exert a powerful
influence over her as does Rebecca over her daughters. Is it possible
to ever stop being your parent's child or your child's
parent?
AT: Yes, on occasion. But for a novelist the people who don't stop
are much more interesting.
Q: Do you ever find yourself getting angry at or having trouble
writing for thorny and difficult characters like Patch and
Rebecca's mother?
AT: In real life I might be very annoyed by some of my characters. I
find it a great deal easier to be tolerant of them on paper.
Q: Once you have created a fictional universe, is it hard to turn
it over to the rest of the world? Do you feel protective of your
characters?
AT: I always have a spell of maternal anxiety when a manuscript is
finally on its way to New York (where, for the first time, someone
other than me will see it). I picture my characters riding the train,
independent of me at last, excited and shy and unsure of themselves.
But once they've arrived and been accepted, I tend to forget
about them.
Q: If you had to choose a favorite character in this novel,
besides Rebecca, which would it be and why?
AT: I'm very fond of Peter. I like his curiosity and is active mind; I
think he's going to grow up to be a very interesting young man.
Q: What other books would you suggest for a reading group discussion?
AT: The most rewarding choice for reading groups would be a book
that they could argue about passionately among themselves.
Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children,for instance--people
have always loved that book or hated it. It could make for a
wonderfully lively discussion.
Q: Are you working a new novel?
AT: I'm in the early stages of a novel about an unhappy marriage--
a subject that intrigues me because it provides such a good opportunity
to watch different types of characters grating against each
other. It begins in 1941, and I'm finding it an unexpected pleasure
to live in another time for a while.
From the Trade Paperback edition.