Redhead by the side of the road (by Anne Tyler)

(Amazon UK link)

On the whole I have enjoyed Anne Tyler’s novels, and re-read several of them a few years ago. I hadn’t planned to acquire any more. But this month’s reading group choice was ‘Redhead by the side of the road’, one of Tyler’s more recent book. It was first published in 2020. I was able to buy it used earlier in the year, and looked forward to reading it.

I was surprised at how short the book is - less than 200 pages - and I finished it in just a couple of days. The main protagonist is a forty-something man called Micah. He lives on his own in a fairly minimalist flat, where he has a caretaking role. At first it appears that he’s taken on the duties because he cares about everything being done properly; it turns out that he’s paid to do this, and has his flat rent-free.

This is a good thing because his main job is as a freelance technical consultant. He gets calls for help most days, and earns sufficient for most of his needs, but it wouldn’t be enough for rent. He’s evidently good at his job, and quite likes it, although many of his clients are elderly ladies who know very little about computers or how to solve minor problems. 

I wondered at first if he was going to be another character on the autistic spectrum - there seem to be a lot of them in modern fiction - but I don’t think that’s the case with Micah. He structures his life quite rigidly, following the same morning pattern of exercise, showering and eating, and has a weekly pattern of cleaning his apartment. He’s quite picky about having everything looking perfect, but he does this in the morning, not last thing at night. And as we learn later in the book, he does this because he grew up in a large, noisy and chaotic household where chores rarely happened, and there was clutter everywhere. His neatness and organisation are in stark contrast. 

Micah has a lady-friend called Cass, and he’s quite happy with their relationship. She works as a teacher, but they sometimes see each other in evenings. At weekends, they spend nights together at her place or his, but he has no wish for anything more permanent. He quite likes living on his own. But he’s not very good at picking up on cues or hints, and this leads to a breakdown in their relationship…

As with most of Tyler’s books, this isn’t a story with a lot of plot. It’s about people, some of them quite quirky, and the ways they relate to each other. Micah has some very strange quirks (such as talking to himself with a pseudo-French accent when he’s cooking) but he’s basically a kind, caring person. I liked him very much. I liked Cass, too, and could sympathise with her frustration when he seems not to understand what she would like him to do. I found his huge extended family rather confusing, and loved the way the descriptions mention only a few by name; I didn’t need to know what everyone was called, and apparently Micah didn’t either. 

The ‘redhead’ - mentioned more than once - is not a person at all, but a fire hydrant which he notices every morning when out jogging. He’s quite short-sighted, and imagines tit is a short redheaded person by the side of the road. Not just the first time he goes out, but day after day… a kind of metaphor for his somewhat tunnel-visioned attitude, I suppose. 

The novel shows Micah thrown - somewhat - out of his routines, partly by Cass deciding to end their relationship, and partly by an unexpected young man turning up on his doorstep. Yet he deals with both situations in positive ways. 

The writing is so good, I could hardly put the book down at times, even though there’s not much action. Anne Tyler has such a gift of observation, of wry pithy comments, and of getting inside her somewhat eccentric people. It doesn’t feel as if they are weird at all while reading; they feel entirely reasonable in their thoughts and behaviour, at the time.

In one sense it’s not a particularly profound book, but I liked reading it very much, and found it quite thought-provoking. The ending is, on the whole, positive, too.  Recommended, if you like observational character-based writing.

 Review copyright 2025 Sue's Book Reviews