French Braid

Deftly done: witty, poignant, wry - and sort of radical . . . Tyler's genius lies in the subtlety with which she portrays her characters' internal worlds . . . another Tyler forte is the focus on things unsaid and the tensions that spread out from these, across generations and even into communities -- Lucy Atkins ― Sunday Times

Another masterclass by our greatest chronicler of family life . . . There are many authors today who try to emulate Anne Tyler's technique, but none of them comes close to the lightness of touch, the accuracy of her ear, or the profundity of her vision -- Craig Brown ― Mail

A novel about what is remembered, what we're left with when all the choices have been made, the children raised, the dreams realized or abandoned. It is a moving meditation on the passage of time . . . For all its charm, "French Braid" is a quietly subversive novel, tackling fundamental assumptions about womanhood, motherhood and female aging -- Jennifer Haigh ― New York Times Book Review

This is her 24th novel: I have read every one. You don't read her for the plot . . . you read her for the eccentric characters, the pitch-perfect dialogue, the humour and the tiny ordinary moments so exquisitely described they bring tears to your eyes. The clarity of her writing amazes me. This novel follows the delightfully dysfunctional Garrett family from the 1950s right up until the present-day pandemic -- Liane Moriarty ― Daily Mail

Entrancing... nobody writes better about families than Anne Tyler... [she] has that rare ability to do much with what seems little, to bring the ordinary and usually unregarded lives of ordinary people to life and make them matter -- Allan Massie ― Scotsman

About the Author