Anne Tyler: Clock Dance (2018, Penguin Random House)
304 pages
English language
Published Jan. 2, 2018 by Penguin Random House.
Willa Drake can count on one hand the defining moments of her life. In 1967, she is a schoolgirl coping with her mother's sudden disappearance. In 1977, she is a college coed considering a marriage proposal. In 1997, she is a young widow trying to piece her life back together. And in 2017, she yearns to be a grandmother, yet the prospect is dimming. So, when Willa receives a phone call from a stranger, telling her that her son's ex-girlfriend has been shot, she drops everything and flies across the country to Baltimore. The impulsive decision to look after this woman and her nine-year-old daughter will lead Willa into uncharted territory--surrounded by eccentric neighbors, plunged into the rituals that make a community a family, and forced to find solace in unexpected places.
This was an easy read, pleasurable enough, but nothing too exciting one way or the other.
But this is the second book I've read in the last few weeks that talks about the saguaro cactus and gets basic facts wrong. Things like that pull me out of the story and kind of piss me off. Okay poetic license and all that. To me it just seems lazy.
