Breathing Lessons – Anne Tyler

As is evident from this blog, I generally read populist fiction rather than Literature, and despite the commercial success of Tyler (The Accidental Tourist was made into, as they say, ‘a major motion picture’ – as opposed to a minor one, I suppose – and Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant was required reading for some school syllabi) I had not previously read any of her work. I bought Breathing Lessons because my brother’s ex-girlfriend loaned it to me when they were dating, and I very much enjoyed it, though for some reason didn’t follow this up by reading anything else by her. Perhaps because I so enjoyed Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale that I went out and bought half her oeveur, then couldn’t get into anything else she’d written. Now, on with the review!
The novel describes the events of a single day in the life of Maggie (mother of Daisy and Jesse, former mother-in-law of Fiona, estranged grandmother of Leroy) and her husband Ira. They spend the morning driving from Baltimore to the small town of Deer Lick to attend the funeral of Max, Maggie’s best friend Serena’s husband, and take a couple of unforeseen detours on the way home. Told in the third person, the bulk of the novel is told from Maggie’s perspective, but there is a telling section where we see what life has been like for Ira, a man who has always put the needs of those he loves ahead of his own desires.
In the process of what we come to realise is an only slightly unusual day for Maggie, Tyler manages to give a brilliant portrayal of a woman who sees the world (at least her part of it) as just slightly out of focus. If only, reasons Maggie, she could adjust it just a little, tweak one little aspect of it, then everything would turn out the way it’s supposed to. And so she tweaks – a small exaggeration here, a tiny explanation here (and it’s not lying, because Jesse really would want to build a crib, if he thought of it; that tyre could be a little loose and therefore dangerous…). But Maggie is wholly incapable of seeing that she’s meddling, not tweaking, other people’s lives, and is unable to learn from past experience.
Breathing Lessons demonstrates that Tyler is a skilled and gifted writer – she refrains from telling, and is magnificently able to portray these whole, real and frustrating characters in a way that is cuttingly insightful while remaining sympathetic. I think I need to read another. - Alex