Anne Tyler's The Amateur Marriage is not so much a novel as a really long argument. Michael is a good boy from a Polish neighborhood in Baltimore; Pauline is a harum-scarum, bright-cheeked girl who blows into Michael's family's grocery store at the outset of World War II. She appears with a bloodied brow, supported by a gaggle of girlfriends. Michael patches her up, and neither of them are ever the same. Well, not the same as they were before, but pretty much the same as everyone else. After the war, they live over the shop with Michael's mother till they've saved enough to move to the suburbs. There they remain with their three children, until the onset of the sixties, when their eldest daughter runs away to San Francisco. Their marriage survives for a while, finally crumbling in the seventies. If this all sounds a tad generic, Tyler's case isn't helped by the characteristics she's given the two spouses. Him: repressed, censorious, quiet. Her: voluble, emotional, romantic. Mars, meet Venus. What marks this couple, though, and what makes them come alive, is their bitter, unproductive, tooth-and-nail fighting. Tyler is exploring the way that ordinary-seeming, prosperous people can survive in emotional poverty for years on end. She gets just right the tricks Michael and Pauline play on themselves in order to stay together: "How many times," Pauline asks herself, "when she was weary of dealing with Michael, had she forced herself to recall the way he'd looked that first day? The slant of his fine cheekbones, the firming of his lips as he pressed the adhesive tape in place on her forehead." Only in antogonism do Michael and Pauline find a way to express themselves. --Claire Dederer


From Publishers Weekly
Because Tyler writes with scrupulous accuracy about muddled, unglamorous suburbanites, it is easy to underestimate her as a sort of Pyrex realist. Yes, Tyler intuitively understands the middle class's Norman Rockwell ideal, but she doesn't share it; rather, she has a masterful ability to make it bleed. Her latest novel delineates, in careful strokes, the 30-year marriage of Michael Anton and Pauline Barclay, and its dissolution. In December 1941 in St. Cassians, a mainly Eastern European conclave in Baltimore, 20-year-old Michael meets Pauline and is immediately smitten. They marry after Michael is discharged from the army, but their temperaments don't mix. For Michael, self-control is the greatest of virtues; for Pauline, expression is what makes us human. She is compulsively friendly, a bad hider of emotions, selfish in her generosity ("my homeless man") and generous in her selfishness. At Pauline's urging, the two move to the suburbs, where they raise three children, George, Karen and Lindy. Lindy runs away in 1960 and never comes back-although in 1968, Pauline and Michael retrieve Pagan, Lindy's three-year-old, from her San Francisco landlady while Lindy detoxes in a rehab community that her parents aren't allowed to enter. Michael and Pauline got married at a time when the common wisdom, expressed by Pauline's mother, was that "marriages were like fruit trees.... Those trees with different kinds of branches grafted onto the trunks. After a time, they meld, they grow together, and... if you tried to separate them you would cause a fatal wound." They live into an era in which the accumulated incompatibilities of marriage end, logically, in divorce. For Michael, who leaves Pauline on their 30th anniversary, divorce is redemption. For Pauline, the divorce is, at first, a tragedy; gradually, separation becomes a habit. A lesser novelist would take moral sides, using this story to make a didactic point. Tyler is much more concerned with the fine art of human survival in changing circumstances. The range and power of this novel should not only please Tyler's immense readership but also awaken us to the collective excellency of her career.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Bookmarks Magazine
Tyler reliably dredges up the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly of domestic life in Baltimore. Though "seldom if ever spiteful," notes The New York Times Book Review, Tyler is a "mischief-maker" in the spirit of Jane Austen. Amateur Marriage, while departing from the trademark quirkiness of previous novels, affirms that reputation. Against the backdrop of six decades of American life--from the bombing of Hiroshima through September 11, from the old neighborhood to the slums, from the tract homes of the '50s and the hippie '60s to the present day--Tyler introduces a typical family. Typical, that is, in a most mundane way: a coterie of husbands and wives, parents and children trying to survive life's twists while preserving an unhappy status quo. Tyler casts an atypically dark look at a hasty wartime marriage and its aftermath. By introducing the Anton family's flaws in a nonjudgmental, sympathetic, and even amused tone, she exposes the aching loneliness of life alone and the crushing weight of life together. It's a heavier novel, lightened by a narrative structure that sidesteps the tedium of multigenerational epics. If we miss some key events between chapters, so what? Critics commend Tyler for giving equal voice to Pauline and Michael, but disagree about their relative value. Some saw Pauline as the novel's emotional core and Michael as Tyler's stock, stoic male. Others thought the opposite. Some even viewed the Antons as so ordinary as to be a bit dull. Yet most considered their runaway daughter Lindy, "zapped and fried and hopped and wigged out," as the weak link. As a casualty of the marriage and the era, Lindy might have spoken up--but her reappearance 29 years after her disappearance emphasizes her absence. Amateur Marriage has some flaws. Yet, with her usual penetrating insight, Tyler captures life at its most ordinary, then carves it open to dissect the bonds that linger on.Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.


From AudioFile
Tyler's ambitious sixteenth novel explores a weighty topic, the erosion of a marriage, over an unusually long period of time, 1941 to the present. Once again, you'll enjoy Tyler's trademark light yet insightful touch. The ill-fated couple at the story's center, Michael and Pauline, are as familiar as relatives-just "two good people who are bad for each other," as Tyler puts it. The point of view in the book's 10 chapters shifts from one family member to another, allowing sympathy for all. Blair Brown's capable reading beautifully facilitates this movement between characters. Brown's voice, like Tyler's writing, is familiar and wise; her subtle distinctions in tone draw contrasts between impetuous Pauline and stolid, methodical Michael without ever hitting a distracting note. J.C.G. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
The attack on Pearl Harbor serves as the catalyst for Tyler's sixteenth novel by propelling Pauline, bleeding from a minor wound sustained in the fervor of a spontaneous patriotic parade, into the humble family grocery run by handsome and reserved young Michael and his embittered widow mother. An outsider to this tightly knit, Polish Catholic Baltimore neighborhood, Pauline is pretty, impulsive, and touchy, and although she and the far more deliberate and reticent Michael fall instantly in love, they are also immediately at odds. They marry precipitously, move into the cramped apartment above the store with his mother, rapidly produce three children, and consistently make each other miserable. Tyler's strength resides in her penetrating psychological portraits and delight in mundane details, and these gifts are evident in the novel's promising opening scenes. But the usually adept Tyler ends up setting 30 years of tedious marital unhappiness and domestic tragedy against a distressingly superficial and bland accounting of the rise of suburbia and the flowering of hippie culture. Her observations about how abruptly even the most boring life can go wrong, and about the fact that we are all amateurs in our first marriages, are poignant, however, and may be enough to satisfy readers who seek safe and comfy novels. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
“An ode to the complexities of familial love, the centripetal and centrifugal forces that keep families together and send their members flying apart, the supremely ordinary pleasures and frustrations of middle-class American life.”
--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"Tyler ranges over 60 years of American experience… from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the anniversary of that day in 2001…as she tracks one couple’s domestic disturbances…[Her] writing is beautifully accurate, more often than not with a glinting vein of humor.”
–William H. Pritchard, New York Times Book Review, front cover

“She evokes the entire sweep of [a marriage] with uncommon delicacy & dignity… gives us the feeling of being inside Michael and Pauline Anton’s marriage.”
–John Freeman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“She traces the stormy union of two people who love but can’t stand each other.”
–Kirkus Reviews

“This ‘wickedly good’ author has come to represent the best of today’s American literature… She is an exquisite chronicler of the everyday
…Her characters are at once infuriating and endearing, conservative yet quietly eccentric.”
–Lisa Allardice, The Observer, London

“Her command of what will move a story forward & engross a reader is faultless.”
–Martha Southgate, Baltimore Sun

“She expertly explores the perils of marriage… Wise & observant…She has the uncanny ability to expose the most confusing contradictions of love.” –Connie Ogle, Miami Herald

“In the fervor of WWII, Michael and Pauline rush head-long into marriage, then live in a constant state of turmoil …We watch safely from a distance like a busybody neighbor hiding behind the curtains, judgmental yet fascinated.”
–Kim Askew, Elle magazine


From the Hardcover edition.


Review
?An ode to the complexities of familial love, the centripetal and centrifugal forces that keep families together and send their members flying apart, the supremely ordinary pleasures and frustrations of middle-class American life.?
--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"Tyler ranges over 60 years of American experience? from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the anniversary of that day in 2001?as she tracks one couple?s domestic disturbances?[Her] writing is beautifully accurate, more often than not with a glinting vein of humor.?
?William H. Pritchard, New York Times Book Review, front cover

?She evokes the entire sweep of [a marriage] with uncommon delicacy & dignity? gives us the feeling of being inside Michael and Pauline Anton?s marriage.?
?John Freeman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

?She traces the stormy union of two people who love but can?t stand each other.?
?Kirkus Reviews

?This ?wickedly good? author has come to represent the best of today?s American literature? She is an exquisite chronicler of the everyday
?Her characters are at once infuriating and endearing, conservative yet quietly eccentric.?
?Lisa Allardice, The Observer, London

?Her command of what will move a story forward & engross a reader is faultless.?
?Martha Southgate, Baltimore Sun

?She expertly explores the perils of marriage? Wise & observant?She has the uncanny ability to expose the most confusing contradictions of love.? ?Connie Ogle, Miami Herald

?In the fervor of WWII, Michael and Pauline rush head-long into marriage, then live in a constant state of turmoil ?We watch safely from a distance like a busybody neighbor hiding behind the curtains, judgmental yet fascinated.?
?Kim Askew, Elle magazine


From the Hardcover edition.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"They seemed like the perfect couple - young, good-looking, made for each other. The moment Pauline, a stranger to the Polish Eastern Avenue neighborhood of Baltimore (though she lived only twenty minutes away), walked into his mother's grocery store, Michael was smitten. And in the heat of World War II fervor, they are propelled into a hasty wedding. But they never should have married." Pauline, impulsive, impractical, tumbles hit-or-miss through life; Michael, plodding, cautious, judgmental, proceeds deliberately. While other young marrieds, equally ignorant at the start, seemed to grow more seasoned, Pauline and Michael remain amateurs. In time their foolish quarrels take their toll. Even when they find themselves, almost thirty years later, loving, instant parents to a little grandson named Pagan, whom they rescue from Haight-Ashbury, they still cannot bridge their deep-rooted differences. Flighty Pauline clings to the notion that the rifts can always be patched. To the unyielding Michael, they become unbearable.

FROM THE CRITICS

USA Today

In new novel The Amateur Marriage, Anne Tyler once again displays the qualities of wisdom, insightful writing and compassion that have made the Baltimore resident the most-admired serious yet popular writer working today. One is never embarrassed to be seen reading a Tyler novel. — Deirdre Donahue

The New York Times

Although acquaintances like to think of them as a perfect couple, Pauline and Michael are constantly bickering, sulking and fighting at home. And by cutting back and forth among the viewpoints of different characters, Ms. Tyler is able to provide a kaleidoscopic view of their marriage, and the ripple effect that their contentious relationship has on their children … an ode to the complexities of familial love, the centripetal and centrifugal forces that keep families together and send their members flying apart, the supremely ordinary pleasures and frustrations of middle-class American life. — Michiko Kakutani

The New Yorker

This novel of marital unhappiness focuses on a couple whose fraught relationship spans sixty years. In the early days of the Second World War, Michael and Pauline find themselves drawn together despite misgivings and bitter fights. The resulting marriage is a thirty-year clash between her impulsiveness and self-absorption and his taciturnity and barely suppressed rage. Tyler examines their acrimonious bond, which persists even after their eventual divorce, with a keen eye for the minor differences that suddenly widen into chasms. In order to illuminate every facet of the couple’s interactions and personalities, the story is told from several points of view: those of Michael and Pauline and two of their three children. Although Tyler’s prose occasionally slips into banality, she never falters in creating vivid characters whose weaknesses are both credible and compelling.

Publishers Weekly

Because Tyler writes with scrupulous accuracy about muddled, unglamorous suburbanites, it is easy to underestimate her as a sort of Pyrex realist. Yes, Tyler intuitively understands the middle class's Norman Rockwell ideal, but she doesn't share it; rather, she has a masterful ability to make it bleed. Her latest novel delineates, in careful strokes, the 30-year marriage of Michael Anton and Pauline Barclay, and its dissolution. In December 1941 in St. Cassians, a mainly Eastern European conclave in Baltimore, 20-year-old Michael meets Pauline and is immediately smitten. They marry after Michael is discharged from the army, but their temperaments don't mix. For Michael, self-control is the greatest of virtues; for Pauline, expression is what makes us human. She is compulsively friendly, a bad hider of emotions, selfish in her generosity ("my homeless man") and generous in her selfishness. At Pauline's urging, the two move to the suburbs, where they raise three children, George, Karen and Lindy. Lindy runs away in 1960 and never comes back-although in 1968, Pauline and Michael retrieve Pagan, Lindy's three-year-old, from her San Francisco landlady while Lindy detoxes in a rehab community that her parents aren't allowed to enter. Michael and Pauline got married at a time when the common wisdom, expressed by Pauline's mother, was that "marriages were like fruit trees.... Those trees with different kinds of branches grafted onto the trunks. After a time, they meld, they grow together, and... if you tried to separate them you would cause a fatal wound." They live into an era in which the accumulated incompatibilities of marriage end, logically, in divorce. For Michael, who leaves Pauline on their 30th anniversary, divorce is redemption. For Pauline, the divorce is, at first, a tragedy; gradually, separation becomes a habit. A lesser novelist would take moral sides, using this story to make a didactic point. Tyler is much more concerned with the fine art of human survival in changing circumstances. The range and power of this novel should not only please Tyler's immense readership but also awaken us to the collective excellency of her career. (Jan.) Forecast: Expect the usual blockbuster sales-there will be a first printing of 300,000. This is also likely to become one of Tyler's strongest backlist titles. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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