Anne Tyler writes about family and writes about it so well you want to read more because she is sparing with the details and gives you just enough. This novel was almost dizzying in it’s movement onwards through time, stopping to give a highly detailed account of a particular moment, or a particular holiday or meal, but then moving on twenty years or ten years or more, so the little boy is now a grandfather, the baby is grown up and the uncertain young woman is a confident adult. This isn’t what you’d call a family saga though, far from it. I wish I’d read it more slowly because I raced through it wanting to know what happened next and it would repay my rereading I think. Tyler is sparing with details and as a reader you do some of the work, she doesn’t labour a point. It’s a novel about family and about love, but she doesn’t spell out her themes, she leaves the reader to see them. There’s a kindness in her writing but there are hard edges as well and at the heart of the story is Mercy, a woman who can’t be pinned down as a ’type’ and who never really explains herself or her actions but the reader is left to see it for themselves and also left with questions. It’s a unique story but also totally believable.

Full disclosure, I am a massive Anne Tyler fan and love her novels. While this is not in my top 5, it still stands head and shoulders above most other books. It tells the story of three generations of the Garrett family, beginning in the 1950s with a family holiday by a lake, which will reveal in small but telling details everything about the quirks and personalities of the family members and how they fit into the Garrett dynamic. Tyler is the master of "show, don't tell," so while nothing very dramatic happens, we slowly piece together the significant events and relationships in the lives of this ordinary but unique group as they pull away from each other and then draw together again, making up the eternally entwined strands of family like the French braid of the title. The narrative often turns to the oddness of attraction and who we choose to spend our lives with, and illustrates how marriage and parenthood can both enrich and stifle, most memorably through Mercy, who only becomes her real self when her children have left home, because as one of her daughters observes, some people are not meant to be mothers. The long-lasting effects of parental attitudes are also felt through the years. Despite the regrets and the sadness sometimes felt, the ultimate sense of the novel is how love endures.

Classic Anne Tyler, in that it is a wide-ranging and ambitious tale of American family life. Seemingly quiet, but moving, profound, and absolutely compelling. A total delight.

French Braid by Anne Tyler
💫💫💫

With thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK for the advance copy, in return for my honest review.

Pulitzer Prize winning author Anne Tyler seems to have a knack for capturing the day-to-day endurance that humans show with a high degree of verisimilitude.

This somewhat humdrum story is told over eight chapters, with each one focusing on a different member of the Garrett family, spanning three generations from the 1950s to the current day.

French Braid is a short but not particularly easy or satisfying read, a bunch of ordinary people going through pretty mundane situations which are easily recognisable to most readers.

There’s the matriarch Mercy, who has trouble resisting the call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time devoted to her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. Their son David intends to escape the family orbit as soon as he’s able but for reasons they seem unable to fathom.

Honestly, my favourite part of the book is the title, French Braid, which encapsulates the loosely woven ties running through this book and the utterly dysfunctional family therein.

Having said that, I have appreciated Tyler’s level of literary skill in her use of language and attention to detail, capturing moments of hilarity and heartbreak as she explores how little we oft know the people closest to us through the quirks of one Baltimore family. Are we simply too close for comfort to sometimes appreciate family dynamics and human flaws?

As always with Anne Tyler, a beautifully observed tale of interconnecting lives- their hopes, their fears and their dreams. Tyler has such a way of making the reader wholly connect with her characters and French Braid is no exception. One of her best ever.

Anne Tyler’s latest novel ‘French Braid’ uses the image of this particular hairstyle to illustrate that when the braids are undone the hair is ‘…in ripples, little leftover squiggles, for hours and hours afterward.…that’s how families work too. You think you’re free of them, but you’re never really free; the ripples are crimped in forever.’
Tyler’s exploration of the intertwined lives of three generations of the Garrett family shows how the very different siblings, Alice, Lily and David, their parents, spouses and children are all affected differently by their experience of family. It’s clear that their individual parent/child relationships and their birth order are as important as their unique personalities in making them whom they become. Building layer on layer of detail as we move though the second half of the twentieth century and into the pandemic years, Tyler once more works her literary magic of writing about the everyday and the profound at one and the same time.
This is another wonderful novel from a supremely talented and wise writer who understands that families ‘’…hide a few uncomfortable truths, allow a few self-deceptions. Little kindnesses.’’ ‘’And little cruelties.’’ In short, Tyler’s writing continues to explore imperfection and celebrate humanity, and we emerge all the better for having been immersed in the lives of her Baltimore inhabitants.
My thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK Vintage for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Familiar fare from one of my favourite authors. We follow the Garretts over six or so decades, from the 1950s to the present day - people who love each other but don’t always want to be around each other too much. Domestic scenes and family interaction are central and finely observed. I wondered all the way through when the metaphor of the interwoven strands of a French braid was going to crop up and right before the end it does. Of course it does.

For anyone who has read and admired Anne Tyler’s work already - her characters, the dialogue, unspoken communication, subtle family dynamics - this latest novel will be heaven. To anyone new to her, there is a huge back catalogue to enjoy. This one is up there with her best.

Anne Tyler is a superb author. Her characters and observations are always believable and she writes with such attention to detail, you are always drawn into the subtle worlds hat she's describing. As good as A Spool of Blue Thread. A fantastic read

I love Anne Tyler's books, and this one was no exception. It is impossible not to get caught up in the lives of her characters, and the portrayal of ordinary family life is accurate and completely believable. A lovely book and one I would thoroughly recommend.

Sad story beautifully written. This author has an enviable way of reaching to the heart of human experience and expertly depicting family dynamics. One of her best stories from a gallery of candidates, Will make a brilliant book club choice with its wealth of potential discussion points. One not to miss.

I loved this one, just like I love any novel by Anne Tyler. I must admit, it took me some time to get into it but it's worth it and I really enjoyed reading another Anne Tyler novel, thank you for sharing this one! Anne Tyler just knows how to decsribe family bonds, always set in Baltimore which is by now so familiar and I was sad letting the characters go at the end of the book.

Gentle, meandering and insightful, French Braid is a beautiful novel. Anne Tyler makes you think, makes you care and engages with the reader in a way that makes you appreciate the small things. The Garrett family will now always have a little place in my heart.
Stretching over the decades we learn about the ordinary lives and family struggles of the Garretts. Each of them complex and yet totally relatable. The Covid-19 pandemic even features in a way that enhances our understanding of some of the family.
My book club, who like action and twists, may struggle with reading Anne Tyler, but I absolutely loved it. No hesitation from me in giving this beautiful book 5 big stars!
Thank you so much to Anne Tyler, #NetGalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read and review this lovely lovely book.
FIVE STARS *****

A charming novel about how you can leave home in person but take the past with you. Anne Tyler’s characters are both highly individual and acutely recognisable. The reader inhabits all her characters from the cat to the ghastly boyfriends.

Anne Tyler has long been the master of writing books about ordinary people and somehow making them fascinating and gripping without ever straying from normality. 'French Braid' is in a similar vein. It is told from the perspectives of different members of the Garrett family, spanning three generations and 1950 through to 2020. The Garretts are not a close family - there are no spectacular arguments or rifts, but the members just don't seem to 'gel' together. They all seem mildly baffled by each other.

Each chapter is from the perspective of a different character and is set in a different time period, covering a particular event of relevance to the overall story of this well meaning but disparate family. One focusses on a family holiday, another on a chance encounter between cousins at a station. All of the narrators are likeable and believable, and all are the sort of people you could meet in daily life.

There is no particular overarching plot - Tyler has an extraordinary ability to get away with writing novels without any real 'story arc'. My preferred element of a book is usually plot - I'm not someone who has time for 'character driven' novels. Yet I always enjoy Tyler's stories and I never find that they drag. If you're in the mood for a really thrilling tale then this isn't the right choice, but if you want a softer paced story that is still enjoyable and compelling then Tyler just does this sort of book so well. I always think a writer who can make you enjoy a style or genre that you don't normally, must be very good indeed.

The blurb is a little bit misleading as I got the impression that the family holiday featured in the second chapter was more significant than it actually was. I kept waiting for the big reveal of what had happened to cause the estrangement of the later-day Garretts. That would certainly have given more of a plot arc, but in fact it doesn't happen. The holiday chapter does a very good job of setting the scene and introducing the first and second generation characters and the way they interact with each other. But there isn't any cataclysmic event to culminate. Which is realistic but I suppose I felt a bit cheated as I was expecting something that didn't happen.

So set aside any ideas that there is an ultimate 'purpose' to this tale, and simply enjoy it as a portrait of a realistic family and their relationships over the generations. Tyler has a lovely turn of phrase and is very observant - her writing is peppered with sentences that make you smile and think 'oh yes, that is exactly right!' or 'I always do that, I didn't realise anyone else did!'. Maybe that's what it so comforting despite not being a 'feel good' novel of the conventional sense. It reminds that, ultimately, most of us have more in common than we sometimes think.

This is a wonderful story. I adored it from start to finish. I found the Garrett family’s story moving and relatable. My favourite Anne Tyler novel is A Spool of Blue Thread, but I found French Braid to be comparable. Anne Tyler is able to help the reader see inside a characters mind and heart. I loved the characters complexity, I felt Robin was especially well drawn. I loved it and highly recommend. Thanks to Random House UK. Vintage and Netgalley for granting me this wish.

This feels like classic Anne Tyler for all the right reasons!

Having also loves Redhead by the Side of the Road and Back When We Were Grown-Ups, I was eager to read a new Anne Tyler novel and it did not disappoint. The story of one family over the generations, I thought it was a beautiful story of middle age and how it might feel to disappear.

The only reason it doesn't get 5 stars is the mention of the pandemic - it could have gone without!

I love Anne Tyler and have read almost all of her novels. This one has a strangely valedictory note, and I do hope it's not the last. There are some themes in her previous novels which she revisits here:

1- A woman, no longer feeling useful to her family, walks away from them almost entirely - but doesn't quite make it (Earthly Possessions, Ladder of Years)
2- An artist slowly moves into their own studio (Celestial Navigation)
3- A young man comes to dinner with an unexpected female partner and her child or children (Saint Maybe)

Plus the small details that appear in other books (a pot roast - Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, a woman who forgets to comb her hair until the end of the day because she's too busy with her newborn - Digging to America), but among them, there are some terrific set pieces.

The novel begins with a leisurely trip to the lake with a homey couple and their three children - whimsical David, practical Alice and headstrong Lily, who grow into the adults that drive most of the narrative. It felt odd at first that the book ends with the pandemic - not that Tyler handles it badly, but her books are curiously timeless, taking place somewhere between the 1970s and the end of the 1990s in my mind, that I couldn't quite accept it was 2020! Still, the sweet ending focused on the healing relationship between a grandparent and grandchild - another Tyler trademark - was a lovely note to end on. One of Tyler's finest books in ages.

Family dynamics is the focus of Anne Tyler’s latest novel, French Braid. This time it is the Garrett family who are under the spotlight. As in all her stories, they are a Baltimore family, and although consistent in their characters and behaviour are a bit of a mystery to each other. As with many families, they have elephants in the room that everyone knows about but still pretend they don’t and behave as if they aren’t there. Although there are no dire consequences of this complicit silence, it still makes me feel very uneasy. It is far more important to be truthful with each other, with kindness, and deal with the reality in front of you and not the fantasy world you are creating.
Mercy and her husband have such a relationship where there is a huge elephant in the room that is never addressed and the other family members pretend that they know nothing about it and that the elephant is not there. Had Mercy and Robin talked about it, things could have been so much better and had the family sat down and talked about it, then they would have been a stronger unit as a consequence.
Nevertheless, this is not reality and this avoidance of the truth seems to work out more or less and we still have a happy ending. Overall this is a story of family love and commitment. It is a lovely novel and really enjoyable to read.
I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved this book, I think it’s my favourite Anne Tyler book.

I knew nothing about this book when I started reading, but I quickly became invested in it.

The story of a family from the 1950’s, right up the present day pandemic. I was captured from the beginning and loved watching the family characters and dynamics develop through their stories.

It isn’t a very long book (288 pages) but there’s a lot packed in and I’m still thinking about the characters days after I’ve finished reading.

A really good read!

I love Anne Tyler’s books and this one is no exception.She writes so convincingly about the little things that make up family life ,with all the highs and lows that most families experience.This book centres on the Garretts ,beginning with their only holiday in 1959 and carrying on at intervals right up to the current pandemic.
I read this book very quickly and was completely captivated by the quality of the writing throughout.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review which reflects my own opinion.