Another wonderful Anne Tyler family novel.I was totally absorbed in the Garett family their story set in the 1950s to todays pandemic.Each character was so well written you will feel you know them their lives problems kept me turning the pages.I was sorry the novel wasn’t longer .#netgalley #frenchbraid.

Anne Tyler is an author unlike any other when it comes to telling us a tale of the American Family. This time wearing together the tale of the Garret family from the late 50s through to present day Pamdemic fuelled America.

No other author can tell you so much about what it is to be human with such well rounded characters but, at times, sparce words.

The Garret family may not seem to be close at times, their behaviour towards each other can appear cold to an outsider, but they absolutely represent so many families today. Becuase sometimes in life it isn't about what we say to each other, it can be what we don't say
"This is what families do for each other - hide a few uncomfortable truths, allow a few self-deceptions. Little kindnesses.'

Another great book looking at human nature from one of America's greatest story tellers. Read it, love it, and then call your nearest and dearest or give them a hug.

I really enjoyed this story of the Garret family. The tale starts in 1959 when Mercy and her husband Robin take their 3 children on a one week holiday to a lakeside cabin. It is the only family holiday they ever take. but reveals the personalities of the family members and their faults. The action then jumps forward to when their youngest, 19 year old son leaves for University and Mercy (the mother) bit by bit removes her belongings and life to her tiny, rented artists studio away from her rigid husband.Nothing really earth shattering happens but Anne Tyler weaves her magic making the mundanities of life and inter personal relationships feel rich, bright and alive..

I absolutely adored this novel - if you’ve ever read any Anne Tyler before, it’s what you would expect, a family saga spanning a few generations. It’s very sharply written and I loved how the changing viewpoints gave a different perspective to stories that were told 50 years apart. Very skilful characterisation and beautiful turns of phrase, I couldn’t put it down and it snuck in right at the end as one of my top reads of 2021. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Anne Tyler, as ever, knows how to write about a family and the ways in which different family members interact and view each other. I enjoyed reading it but found the beginning didn’t really fit in with the rest of the book that well.

Another magnificent novel by Anne Tyler. Her books are always a delight and French Braid is no exception. She has a unique talent for taking ordinary family life and turning it into a fascinating and heartbreaking study of human flaws.

It is coincidental encounter at a station: Serena sees a young man and is not sure if he’s her cousin. Her boyfriend cannot believe this, how can she not know her own cousin? Well, family matters have never been easy with the Garretts. Robin and Mercy have married at a young age, their two daughters Alice and Lily could hardly be more different from each other and their son David, a couple of years younger than the girls, even as a boy, was rather withdrawn. As the years pass by, the kids get older and independent, have their own families, make mistakes, Mercy follows her artistic works and drifts apart from Robin. It is only rare events that bring the whole family together for brief moments, but then, they remain on the surface and the important things are left unsaid.

Anne Tyler has been writing books for almost six decades, but I have only come to detect her work a couple of years ago. What I liked from the start was her relaxed tone which takes life just as it is, acknowledging the ups and downs, knowing that the show has to go on. Her latest novel, too, “French Braid” is wonderfully narrated capturing the small but decisive moments. It is the portrait of a family, not the totally average one but nevertheless one that could just live next door to you. Again, Tyler finds the interesting points in those at the first glance totally average lives.

“What’s the name of that braid that starts high up on little girls’ heads?” David asked Greta one night (...) “Oh a French braid,” Greta said. “That’s it. And then when she undid them, her hair would still be in ripples, little leftover squiggles, for hours and hours afterwards. “ “Yes...” “Well,” David said, “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.”

None of the Garretts have ever been close, not even the married couples, but nevertheless, they are family and therefore gather from time to time. They may not even like each other, but they like to stay informed. Some of them try to break out, especially the women, but just like the French braid, they cannot really free themselves, some things just stick.

Anne Tyler surely is a most accomplished writer, how else would it be possible to totally enjoy a novel and at the same time feel a little bit uncomfortable due to the extent you can recognise yourself in her writing. She does not focus on the exceptional, the outstanding, but finds the aspects worth mentioning in the ordinary, in the well-known and hardly ever actually noticed. It is with her soft voice and quite narration that she hints at what you should look at and think about. Another though-provoking, simply marvellous novel.

I love an Anne Tyler novel so I’m setting the bar high as I review her latest.
It is thoroughly enjoyable but a little uneven.
It starts with two members of the Garrett family whom we don’t really see again. This section (maybe a quarter of the novel) didn’t quite get going for me.
In the largest middle half, Tyler really got into her usual stride. Her depiction of the Garrett family and their day to day lives - the small domesticities and how they make up the larger whole of life - is exquisite. Mercy and Robin Garrett and their marriage are beautifully drawn.
The last quarter speeds through the Garrett family and the next generations. There’s a lot covered and it’s not quite as absorbing.
As a whole, I really enjoyed this and Robin and Mercy will stay with me as characters.
Thoroughly recommended: it isn’t her greatest tour de force, but - as I said - it’s a very high bar, and this is very good.

4.5 rounded up

In the summer of 1959 the Garrett family take their first and last family vacation to sleepy woods but this holiday is pivotal to future events. There is father Robin who is definitely not a born vacationer as you can see, they only have the one. His wife Mercy just wishes for time to devote to painting and takes every opportunity to escape. There are two teenage daughters, steady, sensible Alice who seems to be the only adult present (!) and boy mad Lily who are absolutely poles apart in every possible way. Finally, there is seven year old David who is a very perceptive child and especially smart about people. You could describe this as a typical Ann Tyler novel with it incisive look at extended family situations and their dynamics. The storytelling seems so natural that when they are bickering you feel as if you are ear-wigging! Their history is told from 1959 through to the pandemic and is written in the third person but keeps switching character perspective which is fantastic as the views and perceptions constantly changes.

I love how Anne Tyler turns the every day ordinary (maybe even mundane)into something extra-ordinary. It should be dull but it’s riveting because of how she writes so you are drawn into the dynamic, fly on the wall style. It’s amusing and droll in parts, there is tenderness and empathy for the characters and what emerges is a gentle tale showing moments of genuine connection between the characters. The one I especially like is that of grandmother Mercy with granddaughter Candle (Kendall) which is very heartwarming.

The book examines how actions and interactions have lasting consequences which you see vividly especially through Mercy and the siblings.They love but they don’t necessarily like or understand.The characterisation is masterful.
You empathise with Mercy as she slowly drifts away to pursue her passion for art, you wince at Alice’s judgements and kind of applaud Lily for doing it her way. I love how it rounds off the end so you finally really ‘see’ sensitive and lovely David for what he is. It’s interspersed with family memories that pulls them back together albeit temporarily, which is so true to life.

My one reservation is the start of the novel in 2010 begins with two interesting characters we don’t really see again and it’s just used as a vehicle to introduce the Garretts. It didn’t quite work for me hence the 4.5 not the full five stars though it’s well and truly worthy of the rounding up to 5 stars.

Finally, nobody can write about family dynamics as well as Anne Tyler, she weaves magic into the every day elevating it into something special. In my view she is one of the most skilful writers of her generation.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Random House U.K./ Vintage/ Chatto and Windus for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

Anne Tyler can write about every day families and the minutiae of family life and somehow make it interesting. It shows nothing is ever black and white. All the characters have a different perspective of their place in the family . Enjoyed it

I don’t know how Anne Tyler does it - she takes a perfectly ordinary family and weaves their story into the most wonderful web of comings and goings, intrigues, foibles and daily lives, and comes up with yet another masterpiece! The Garrett family take a holiday in a lakeside cabin - the only one they will ever have, and thus begins the story that takes them from the 1950s to today in the lives of Mercy, her husband, three children, and then their children in turn. The story is simply one of a family over time, but is so beautifully written and characterised it becomes the story of one of the great families in history. Anne Tyler is one of the greatest living writers, and long may she continue to give us such stunning books.

One of my favourite authors! This one is brilliantly perceptive, painfully true and funny journey deep into one family's foibles, from the 1950s right up to the changed world of today. I couldn’t put my kindle down once I’d started it. Amazing!

BBC Radio 4 ask "If Anne Tyler isn't the best writer in the world, who is?" I don't know the answer to that question but if there is a better writer than Anne Tyler in the world then I want to read their books.

What I love so much about Anne Tyler's stories is that if you were to describe the plots to someone who had never read her books they would likely find them underwhelming. If you describe them to someone who has read her books, then they would know they are in for a hell of a read.

Tyler's magic is in making the ordinary, beautiful. A tale here of generations of one ordinary family told over a number of decades but brought to life by the most beautiful, heartfelt, honest prose known to man (and woman).

How she manages to bring out book after book after book and hit the mark each time is a skill very few writers have.

My father often told me fondly of the best writers of his generation. I know I will be telling my young kids all about Anne Tyler.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK, Vintage, Chatto & Windus, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I have genuinely never been so happy to have been granted an ARC.

I’ve read practically everything Anne Tyler has published and remain a fan. French Braid is now one of my favourites, along with Breathing Lessons; I love the warmth and the gentle humour in it, the way the story of the family unfolds over a long period of time. When I found myself gasping out loud and tearing up at one part (the journey) I realised how much I was involved in the story. There is nothing I can say which is anything but favourable.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this lovely book.

"Nobody outside a marriage has any real notion what goes on inside."

That quote sums up how I feel whenever I read one of Tyler's books. She has a marvellous way of bringing me right into the story so that I'm there as an extra character. Just like in real life, I am bewildered, trying to figure out what is going on in the minds of all these people suddenly surrounding me, trying to make sense of what motivates them, why they say what they say, or what they really mean.

French Braid, like most of Tyler's novels that I've read, is written in third person, but it switches point of view so that you get to see events through various characters' eyes. Each chapter deals with an event in the Garrett family, beginning in 2010, then going back to 1959 and hopping forward through the decades back to the present day. Along the way we build up a picture of the family through three generations.

One of my favourite things with Tyler's writing is how she makes all the ordinary, day-to-day things so interesting. Half the time I feel like I'm reading conversations that have happened in my own family, and her characters are just so relatable. The people are the story and I never want to leave them; I'm always wishing for another chapter to hear what happened next. French Braid was no different and I had a really good time reading it. I was trying to settle on some favourite characters, but although I loved Mercy and had a soft spot for David I ended up liking everyone by the end. Altogether a charming portrait of a family that I look forward to rereading.

Many thanks to Random House UK, Vintage and Netgalley for kindly providing me with an arc for review. I really appreciate it.

'French Braid' is another stunning novel from Anne Tyler which explores the lives of the Garrett family from different perspectives from the 1950s right up to the present. The novel starts in 2010 with a chance encounter in a railway station between two cousins who barely recognise each other and then spools back to their parents' childhood to explore how families might gradually drift apart and become virtual strangers to each other.

This makes it sound very sad, and it is certainly frequently poignant, but Tyler's writing is, as ever, suffused with such wisdom, tenderness and compassion for all of her characters, and there are moments of healing and connection throughout the novel: a grandmother and granddaughter sharing a love of painting; the gentle companionship of aunt and nephew; a family coming back together during lockdown. The action of the novel is for the most part quiet and undramatic, but as ever Tyler locates the extraordinary within the ordinary. One of the most moving scenes happens as a grandfather re-watches home video footage from when his children were young: "The sight of those children shocked him. They were back! They'd returned! He'd forgotten they'd ever existed, but all at once they'd rematerialized."

This is another masterpiece which I would recommend to all fans of Anne Tyler's work and of other writers such as Elizabeth Strout and Mary Lawson. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review!

I love Anne Tyler and French Braid did not disappoint. The characters and their stories will linger with me and as always with Anne Tyler the writing is beautiful

I am far too late in discovering the understated genius of Anne Tyler and thankfully I now have an extensive back catalogue to relish.

This was a gorgeous depiction of family life. Understated, beautifully written and made me laugh and smile and nod my head in agreement throughout.

She describes the minutiae of feelings and day to day events so perfectly and I felt toile a fly on the wall within their household.

Gorgeous and riveting. Totally recommended.