~ Redhead by the Side of the Road, by Anne Tyler ~
Micah Mortimer is such a realistic character that he might as well live next door. (As it happens, he lives not very far from me, in Baltimore). He’s 43, and lives a very well organized life in the basement of a small apartment building. He’s a little eccentric, but not at all dysfunctional. He’s the apartment superintendent, and runs a one-man tech company called Tech Hermit (his nickname in college) to help people with home technical problems.
It’s Micah’s emotional life that is, perhaps, just a bit too organized to be entirely happy. He has a steady relationship with Cass, his ‘woman friend’ (“he refused to call anyone in her late thirties a ‘girlfriend'”) — they get together a few times a week — but Cass’ landlady has discovered Cass has a cat, and threatens to evict her. Cass calls him in a panic:
“And where would I move to?'”Cass asked. […] “What if I end up homeless?”
“Cass. There are hundreds of people with pets, living all over Baltimore. You’ll find another place, trust me.”
There was a silence.
Hmm. What might Micah have offered there? The reader almost wants to text him a suggestion.
A teenage boy turns up at Micah’s door, suggesting he might be Micah’s son from a long-ago college relationship. The long-lost-son plot twist could be cliched, but Tyler settles that right away: the boy’s age means that there is no chance of a genetic connection. His appearance, though, prompts a slow self-reflection on Micah’s part: his past, his girlfriends, and how he ended up with the lifestyle he has now.
It was true that he had come close to marrying a few times. He hadn’t always thought marriage was messy. But each new girlfriend had been a kind of negative learning experience. Zara, for instance: only in hindsight did he see what a mismatch Zara had been. […] As for Cass: well, by the time he met Cass he was forty years old, and she was not much younger. He’d figured they had nothing to prove.
The charm of Tyler’s novels are her characters; odd and distinctive as each one is, their personalities and lives are so gently displayed that the reader is always empathetic . She shows, rather than tells: all the quotidian details of Micah’s life that bring out his personality are laid out over the course of the novel. He is meticulous and loves routine, but is not at all a curmudgeon; he is an instinctively kind person who just … happens to miss the big picture at times. The reader is rooting for him all the way.
The side characters are just as nicely drawn. A renter in his apartment building:
Yolanda Palma, a dramatic-looking woman in maybe her early fifties with a flaring mane of dark hair and a mournful, sagging face. “So what’s new in your life?” she asked, as she watched him test the voltage. She always behaved as if they were old friends, which they weren’t.
The teenager who turns up at his doorstep:
This was a rich kid, Micah saw. Handsome, in that polished and privileged sort of way. Well-cut dark hair conforming to the shape of his skull, collar of his white shirt standing up in back, sleeves of his blazer pushed nearly to his elbows (a style Micah found affected).
Micah’s personality might lead the reader to imagine he lacks family, but no, he has a large, entertainingly chaotic, lively, affectionate set of siblings, their spouses and children, and even their grandchildren.
Ada’s husband was the first to notice Micah. He was a burly, gray-bearded man with a denim apron strained tight across his beachball stomach, and he appeared in the dining-room doorway holding a foot-and-a-half-long spatula. “Bro!”, he shouted. “High time you got here!” Behind him came Ada, big-boned and brightly lipsticked, beneath a frizz of dyed red hair, bearing a magnum of chardonnay. “Hey, hon!”, she said.
It’s not that Micah craves their messy lives at all, but…. as the novel goes on, his loneliness becomes evident, even to himself. Cass has broken up with him, and he misses her desperately. His routine, once so satisfactorily orderly, begins to seem empty. Will he, and can he, break out of his habits, and get some perspective?
There are no murders or dramatic events in Anne Tyler’s novels; life changes occur in reaction to very relatable, mundane situations. For a reader, it’s as if you were getting a deep look into the life of someone you pass every day on the road, or see in a bus: insight into the private lives of thoroughly believable characters.
The title of the novel might lead you to believe that Micah is going to pick up a beautiful redhead by the side of the road who will break through his shell and solve all his emotional problems. But no, once again that would be far too predictable for Tyler. The explanation of the title is a charming summary of Micah’s problems, but I’ll leave you to discover it for yourself.
Comment
This review made me want to read this book, so I put it on hold at the library. (Our libraries now allow drive-through, contact-free check-outs.) I’ve reserved it in 2 formats: the book, or the audiobook. Do you have a preference?
I always read paper books (or now, ebooks). I like to flip back and forth sometimes, to remind myself of how a character was described, or how the last chapter ended. Can’t do that with an audiobook, no? But people tell me that an audiobook read by a good reader is a wonderful enhancement to the writing.
Which do you prefer, if given the choice?
And how lovely that your library allows drive-through checkouts! Ours says it will start by the end of the month… let’s see how that goes.
Read this book, then came back to your review. Found myself agreeing with everything you wrote. Although it struck me much the same, I think you had more patience than I did. Yes, it is true Micah seems a regular chap, and yes, Tyler’s writing is about showing not telling and there needs to be no drama indeed. But I wonder if Tyler has not pushed this too far this novel, meaning that the narrative goes nowhere really, only at the end, does it take a little decisive direction. Otherwise, it is seemingly for nothing, except as you say, to take a deeper look at the people we pass. But although every person is in a sense interesting as a person, most people are also unextraordinary and not particularly interesting. Tyler’s writing is so assured that I found the novel progressing swiftly and smoothly, it was a very easy, pleasant read. But I found no urgency in myself to read on, because I had not really identified with any character or connected with any character. They were all likeable, mundanely endearing, and so on, but did not grab me. I could have just as easily passed them – and this novel – by, with a smile and a nod, and not have missed much.
I don’t mean all this as severely as it sounds – I am a great admirer of Tyler’s writing by and large. And it is not that I didn’t enjoy this one, I did! But most of the way through, I couldn’t suppress the feelings, “And? So?”
The title was explained fairly early on in the story. But I didn’t find it central enough to the story or Micah’s character, to warrant it being the title. It is a catchy title, but unrepresentative of the story, which I find slightly disingenuous.
It is not that I would not recommend this book. But if asked, I would recommend a whole pile of Tyler’s other novels first, before this one.