Sunday, August 31, 2008

A SLIPPING DOWN LIFE

A Slipping Down Life, Anne Tyler, Alfred A Knopf, 1970, 186 pp


This is Tyler's third novel and reads somewhat like an early novel, yet has her signature characters: people who live just outside the mainstream.

Evie Decker is a plump, motherless high school girl in a small town. She becomes, in her own detached way, infatuated with a local rock singer. As the story goes on she gets increasingly involved in Drumstrings Casey's life. Nothing really bad ever happens to her but there is a sort of underlying menace throughout the story. Evie is smart and fearless but also pretty clueless so you fear for her.

I was intrigued and pulled along all the way. There is just no one quite like Anne Tyler. And there is a movie!

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