The Beginner's Goodbye

The Beginner's Goodbye Anne Tyler

Adult New Fiction Tyler


When a tree falls on Aaron's house, killing his wife Dorothy, he feels
completely lost. Everyone in his neighborhood and at work wants to cook
for him or take him out, but all Aaron wants to do is be alone with his
grief. So he empties out casseroles, dumping them in the garbage and
sending thank yous. In his grieving, the one person he longs to speak with
is Dorothy. There's a beautiful quote to that effect, but I can't find it.



After staying in the hospital for days on end, he returns to his torn up
home until a rainstorm forces him to move in with his overbearing sister.
Dororthy starts to visit Aaron for brief moments as he recalls his
courtship and their 10 year marriage. Dorothy, or Dr. Rosales as she would
always correct everyone, was a plain, no frills woman. Aaron was crippled
as a boy on his right side. The two seemed to converse through silences
and it takes Dorothy's visits after her death to show Aaron how to say
goodbye and to realize the truth of his marriage, that it wasn't really a
happy one.



This is a brief book. Aaron is a publisher of a vanity press, inherited
from his father, not something he would have wanted to do after having
graduated from Stanford. His company publishes "beginners' guides to..."
and in this way this book is a guide for Aaron to say goodbye. As usual
Tyler sets this in Baltimore and she has a way of drawing upon the most
ordinary of characters and finding their humanity and quirkyness.