I discovered some of Anne Tyler’s books when we lived in the United States for a couple of years in the early 1990s. But I didn’t begin acquiring some of them for myself - mostly secondhand - until the turn of the century. I always liked her style, so when I saw one of her books that I had not previously come across, ‘The Beginner’s Goodbye’, at a church book sale, it was an easy decision to buy it.
The novel sat on my to-be-read shelf for some months - and I’ve just read it in the past couple of days. I found it almost unputdownable, and I’m not entirely sure why, as there’s not a huge amount of plot. As I recall, this is typical for this author. Her books are character-driven, and her characters, if a tad eccentric at times, are delightfully three dimensional.
The story is narrated by Aaron, a young man who works as an editor for what used to be called a Vanity publisher, though they also publish some of their own books. Most of them start with ‘The Beginner’s guide to…’ which, I’m sure, was the reason for the title of this book although it’s a novel rather than non-fiction.
Aaron has recently been bereaved. His wife Dorothy died in a tragic accident, which we learn about a few chapters into the book. But she’s started appearing to him - not as a ghost, but as a physical being who moves, and talks, and even has a scent of her own. This is never really explained, and Aaron himself doesn’t understand it, but in the first chapter they are walking side by side, rather confounding some of their neighbours.
The timeframe of the story moves backwards and forwards, although it’s done well and it’s always obvious what’s going on. So we learn about the circumstances of Dorothy’s death, and we learn about how she and Aaron first met. The plot moves forwards as Aaron moves in with his sister for a while, and employs a builder to renovate his house, but it also flashes back to previous events in his life. And there are scenes with Dorothy, re-appearing unexpectedly, having unsatisfactory and rather brief conversations.
Aaron desperately misses his wife, although he acknowledges that she had some annoying quirks, and that they weren’t as close as some couples; and in their brief interactions he discovers a little more about himself, and even one or two things about Dorothy. There are scenes in the office where he works, and at his sister’s home… and an encouraging and positive, if slightly unexpected, ending.
There’s gentle humour, irony, cleverly written descriptions, a low-key romance, and some poignancy too although less than one would expect, given the subject matter. All in all, I liked this book very much, and am now planning to re-read my collection of Anne Tyler novels, some of which I haven’t read for a couple of decades.
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