Product Description

“POIGNANT . . . FUNNY . . . THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST IS ONE OF HER BEST. . . . [TYLER] HAS NEVER BEEN STRONGER.”
–The New York Times

Macon Leary is a travel writer who hates both travel and anything out of the ordinary. He is grounded by loneliness and an unwillingness to compromise his creature comforts when he meets Muriel, a deliciously peculiar dog-obedience trainer who up-ends Macon’s insular world–and thrusts him headlong into a remarkable engagement with life.

“BITTERSWEET . . . EVOCATIVE . . . It’s easy to forget this is the warm lull of fiction; you half-expect to run into her characters at the dry cleaners . . . Tyler [is] a writer of great compassion.”
–The Boston Globe

“Tyler has given us an endlessly diverting book whose strength gathers gradually to become a genuinely thrilling one.”
–Los Angeles Times

“A DELIGHT . . . A GRACEFUL COMIC NOVEL ABOUT GETTING THROUGH LIFE.”
–The Wall Street Journal

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #95366 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-09
• Released on: 2002-04-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780345452009
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Library Journal
Scarred by grief after their 12-year-old son's senseless murder (he was shot by a holdup man in a Burger Bonanza), Macon and Sarah Leary are losing their marriage too. Macon is unable to cope when she leaves him, so he settles down ``safe among the people he'd started out with,'' moving back home with two divorced brothers and spinster sister Rose. Author of a series of guidebooks called ``Accidental Tourist'' for businessmen who hate to travel, Macon is Tyler's focus here, as she gently chronicles his journey from lonely self-absorption to an ``accidental'' new life with brassy Muriel, a dog trainer from the Meow Bow Animal Hospital, who renews and claims his heart. Not a character, including Macon's dog Edward, is untouched by delightful eccentricity in this charming story, full of surprises and wisdom. All of Tyler's novels are wonderful; thisher tenthis the best yet. BOMC main selection. Janet Wiehe, P.L. of Cincinnati & Hamilton Cty.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"A beautiful, incandescent, heartbreaking, exhilarating book... There's magic in it... comic scenes that explode with joy."-- Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World

"Brilliant...poignant [and] funny...One of her best." -- Larry McMurtry, The New York Times Book Review -- Review

Review
“INDISPUTABLY HER BEST BOOK . . .
It leaves one aching with pleasure and pain.”
–The Washington Post

“Hilarious . . . and touching . . . Anne Tyler is a wise and perceptive writer with a warm understanding of human foibles.”
–St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Comic . . . Sweetly perverse . . . A novel animated by witty invention and lively personalities.”
–Time

“Anne Tyler [is] covering common ground with uncommon insight. . . . Convincingly real.”
–People

Customer Reviews

"He could not think of a single major act he'd managed of his own accord."
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1985, this thoughtful character novel focuses on Macon Leary, a travel writer who hates to travel, a man who has gone through life observing what is happening, but who has never been truly engaged. Compulsively tidy, Macon has always believed that it is possible to order one's life so effectively that the untidiness, or chaos, that throws life into confusion can be avoided. And then his beloved 12-year-old son is cold-bloodedly murdered in the senseless robbery of a burger joint while he is away at camp for the first time.

It gives away nothing of the plot to say that this event totally undoes Macon and his wife, and their polite and predictable marriage goes into a tailspin. When the novel opens, Macon and Sarah have decided to separate, with Sarah getting her own apartment (where she can be as messy as she wants) and Macon remaining in the house with his son Ethan's undisciplined dog Edward. In fact, Macon has moved back with his sister and brothers in the family house, to recuperate from his physical wounds--an accident in which he breaks his leg-- and from his emotional wounds.

Then into his life comes Muriel, a divorcee with an over-protected, allergic, and hypersensitive son. She is a dog trainer, a flake, the only person willing to undertake the task of civilizing the aggressive, sometimes vicious "pet" that lives with Macon. As Macon tries to deal with his life, his loss of Sarah (who is dating), his son's dog (which attacks anything that moves), and his commitment to producing yet another travel book, his life becomes more complicated, and the depth of his relationship with Sarah, relative to the shared loss they have faced, becomes an issue which must be revisited if he is ever to engage with life and explore the possibilities of a new life which Muriel offers.

Filled with wonderful descriptions of life, both within Macon's family and in Europe, where he travels for research, the novel provides the reader with a full, realistic picture of marriage between people whose relationship has been, in part, the result of their commitment to their son. Poignant and emotional, but avoiding melodrama, the novel explores the meaning of life and love, the extent to which a marriage may limit or stimulate the growth of the people involved, and the ways in which a marriage must adapt to the new needs of the participants if it is to endure through time. n Mary Whipple

A beautiful book.
I love this book! I've read it dozens of times. At first glance, it's fetching and readable, but look beyond the surface - some passages are near masterpieces. Look for Macon fixing the sink with Alexander, and Macon shopping for clothes with Alexander. This book also gives a believable and touching description of a person changing. Just follow Macon's thoughts and see how they change with time. I think this is Tyler's best (and I've read them all).

This book may have saved my life.
It opened my eyes to interpersonal mess-ups in a new way and helped me understand the crucial difference between romance and love. It's also one of the few books I've ever read from cover to cover, without even skipping sentences. (Usually I skip whole chapters if nothing seems to be happening.) The funny thing is, it's not exactly action-packed, it just gives you a good look "under the hood" of this world. To me, the rave reviews are deserved and I want to add my own five stars. To the author: thank you for surviving whatever you had to go through to understand human nature so well!