French Braid by Anne Tyler

Vintage, 2023 (first published by Chatto & Windus, 2022)

Why?

Anne Tyler is an author I've always meant to read, and I grabbed this on a Kindle promotion.

Enjoyment factor

I'd call this a very quiet novel and at no point felt myself rushing to get back to it, but at the same time, I wasn't compelled to give up.

It's a multi-generational saga of an ordinary American family, spanning the late 1940s to the pandemic. The point is that the family members are not close, but neither are they at each other's throats, which I found entirely relatable - if unremarkable.

It left me thinking ...

That if I can identify with this family much more readily than I can with sagas about close families, how many others feel that way too.

But that, conversely, I'd rather read about the ups and downs of involved, emotionally charged families - and whether this is because it makes for a more engaging story, or whether it's because this type of family holds a certain fascination for me but is best kept inside a novel.