Book Review: "The Accidental Tourist" by Anne Tyler

I've reviewed books like Clock Dance and perhaps books I was more on the fence about like Vinegar Girl. I have also reviewed Back When We Were Grown-Ups, which felt like it should have been better, but The Amateur Marriage definitely picked up her collection for me. Celestial Navigation was a great book and I've read a ton of others by the same author. From my observations over the years, I can definitely see that Anne Tyler is a woman of many talents as a writer - even though not everything written by her is my thing. Let's see how The Accidental Tourist goes, shall we?

We open with a sense of character and place as our setting is Baltimore and our character is Macon Leary - a travel guide writer. His son was killed in a shooting within a fast-food restaurant and his marriage is being lost to grief. When it finally destroys itself, he moves in with his siblings and they are strange to say the least. I'm not going to lie, but the start of this book doesn't seem like it's going anywhere fast. There's a lot of character development and we are dropped into the life and times of Macon Leary, a man struggling to process his life. But I find it difficult to connect with him because of his position still being pretty strong. Yes, he might have lost his marriage and his kid, but he still has an income and he still has a support system. It all feels a bit like first world problems to me.

Julian is Macon's publisher and he eventually falls in love with one of the sisters and marries her. This adds a weird dynamic to the family as it becomes bother business and personal. Macon then hires a woman to train a dog. Her name is Muriel and she is a very obvious juxtaposition to Macon's ex-wife. She is also the exact opposite of Macon himself with a personality that is out-there all the way. It's very purposeful and feels almost too obvious. I enjoyed the writing as I tend to with Anne Tyler, but the story seemed a bit off for me. There seemed to be too much focus on romantic plot-lines and not enough on everything else. I am not too fond of a romantic storyline - they all seem a bit plain.

But of course the obligatory ex-wife comes back into his life because, well, I'm not saying the story is dry but the story is dry. Macon ends up ultimately moving in with Muriel and her sickly son named Alexander. Their home is in a weird part of town and it doesn't really reflect the life of a man who writes for a living. Macon definitely feels like his love this time around is more optimistic and it has more communication than the last time. However, in the part where his ex-wife comes back into the picture what we have is a pull between one woman and the other. This feels like a really cliché move by the author. I'm not saying it was all bad, but there was no substance to which I could grab. I loved the book Redhead by the Side of the Road and even the book Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant but I feel like this book here doesn't have the same amount of depth even though it rivals the others in size. It did feel like at times, it dragged itself about by the coat-tails.

I'm not going to give up on Anne Tyler don't worry. She has written far more great books than she has written not so great ones. I find her storylines to be more vivid and deep when there's more than one character involved and there's also some sort of familial something to the main plot. Romance isn't great to use as a main plot, but the storyline of romance between Julian and Macon's sister seems to fit in nicely as a side story. I was alright with the writing before the two-woman decision turned up and I'm honestly surprised I didn't see the ending earlier. But all in all, I think this will be on the bottom of the pile when it comes to Anne Tyler novels for me.