"Redhead by the Side of the Road," by Anne Tyler

There are certain writers whose latest work I will always look for and read as soon as possible after it is published. These authors include, but are far from limited to, Anne Enright, Jane Gardam, Penelope Lively, Alice Munro, Lori Ostlund, Ann Patchett, Anne Raeff, Richard Russo, Zadie Smith, Colm Toibin, Kate Walbert, and Meg Wolitzer. Another, and the one I focus on today, is the wonderful Anne Tyler; I believe I have read, admired, and enjoyed every one of her twenty-two published novels. Highlights include “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant,” “The Accidental Tourist,” “The Amateur Marriage,” “Digging to America” (which I twice taught), and “A Spool of Blue Thread”; I have posted here on several of these. I have just read her newest novel, “Redhead by the Side of the Road” (Knopf, 2020), and it too is excellent. Like most of her novels, it takes place in Baltimore, where she lives. And like most of her novels, the characters are very “ordinary” and down-to-earth (but like all people, more complex than they initially appear). Often not a lot “happens” in Tyler’s novels, and that is true of this one too. The main character, Micah Mortimer, is a middle-aged man with a simple life. He is good to his family, friends, and clients (he has a one-man computer repair service). He likes people, and people like him, but he has trouble connecting in a deeper way. His relationships with women are always pretty good, but somehow the women eventually leave because they feel he is not committed enough, or emotionally available enough. He doesn’t quite understand why they leave, and is rather passive in simply accepting the end of these relationships. Micah reminds me, in his somewhat isolated life, emotional limitations, and passivity, of the main characters in some of Tyler’s earlier novels, including Noah in “Noah’s Compass” (2009). Micah meets some new people and has some new experiences during the course of this new novel; none of these are dramatic, but they ease him toward new insights and new or renewed connections with people. As always with Tyler’s novels, “Redhead by the Side of the Road” is deceptively low-key but very "real" and very satisfying.