Summary and Reviews of The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler

Media Reviews

Baltimore Sun - Martha Southgate Her command of what will move a story forward & engross a reader is faultless.

New York Times Book Review (front cover) - William H. Pritchard Tyler ranges over 60 years of American experience… from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the anniversary of that day in 2001…as she tracks one couple's domestic disturbances…[Her] writing is beautifully accurate, more often than not with a glinting vein of humor.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch - John Freeman She evokes the entire sweep of [a marriage] with uncommon delicacy & dignity… gives us the feeling of being inside Michael and Pauline Anton's marriage.

USA Today - Deirdre Donahue In new novel The Amateur Marriage, Anne Tyler once again displays the qualities of wisdom, insightful writing and compassion that have made the Baltimore resident the most-admired serious yet popular writer working today. One is never embarrassed to be seen reading a Tyler novel.

Elle magazine - Kim Askew In the fervor of WWII, Michael and Pauline rush head-long into marriage, then live in a constant state of turmoil …We watch safely from a distance like a busybody neighbor hiding behind the curtains, judgmental yet fascinated.

Miami Herald - Connie Ogle She expertly explores the perils of marriage… Wise & observant…She has the uncanny ability to expose the most confusing contradictions of love.

The New Yorker Although Tyler's prose occasionally slips into banality, she never falters in creating vivid characters whose weaknesses are both credible and compelling.

The Observer (UK) - Lisa Allardice This 'wickedly good' author has come to represent the best of today's American literature… She is an exquisite chronicler of the everyday…Her characters are at once infuriating and endearing, conservative yet quietly eccentric.

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani ....an ode to the complexities of familial love, the centripetal and centrifugal forces that keep families together and send their members flying apart, the supremely ordinary pleasures and frustrations of middle-class American life.

Booklist - Donna Seaman ... the usually adept Tyler ends up setting 30 years of tedious marital unhappiness and domestic tragedy against a distressingly superficial and bland accounting of the rise of suburbia and the flowering of hippie culture. Her observations about how abruptly even the most boring life can go wrong, and about the fact that we are all amateurs in our first marriages, are poignant, however, and may be enough to satisfy readers who seek safe and comfy novels.

Kirkus Reviews Painfully accurate and painfully funny as ever, [The Amateur Marriage] traces the stormy union of two people who love but can't stand each other......So smart, so sensitive, so readable and engaging. Is it churlish to suggest that an author obviously at the peak of her powers should broaden her horizons and push herself a little harder the next time out?

Library Journal - Starr E. Smith [This] sad story, as dark and ironic as Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, is leavened by Tyler's trademark comic details, narrated with characteristic dry and witty understatement. This rewarding work is recommended for most public libraries.

Publishers Weekly The range and power of this novel should not only please Tyler's immense readership but also awaken us to the collective excellency of her career.