The Frame

by Anne Tyler

Git yer disfunctional families, right here. The mother is controlling, the father leaves when the kids are little, the oldest son is mean and brusque, the daughter is a commitmentphobe, and the younger son is just a little slow (and actually, their interpersonal relationships are even worse than that suggests). Lots of things happen, as we follow the family from the mother’s marriage on through her death as an old woman, and a lot of it is quite good. I mean, the things that happen are usually bad, but the book is good. I’d never read Anne Tyler before, and I’m not sure I’ll jump right out and read something else of hers, but I enjoyed reading this as much as any of the other Southern Lit books up to this point. The third-person narrator moves back and forth between the different characters points of view, which makes them much more complex than they initially appear.
Above Average