Saint Maybe (1991)

touching story of young man who feels responsible for his brother's death and thus selflessly devotes his life to two orphans as penance; Christian, intelligent, honest; the best Anne Tyler

A lonely teen troubled by a past family tragedy is suspicious of his sister-in-law, believing she is being unfaithful. His confrontation with his brother sets off a series of tragic events.

Reading an Anne Tyler novel is like being cuddled. The structure of this novel will be familiar to her readers; a family saga, following the life of one or two characters over a couple of generations. There are ups and downs, but it is the well drawn characters that marks her novels out as fantastic; she gets under the skin in subtle ways. She doesn't do this by being obviously in the head of her characters, she keeps some distance and gives the reader little glimpses into how they are thinking and acting and lets you try and figure it out.
In this case, we follow the life of Ian, starting from Ian as a 17 year old, with a normal middle America sort of life. His life changes when his brother and then sister in law die and Ian becomes the main carer for their three children.
Ian is a reticent hero of a novel and seems to bumble along. The joy of Ian is that he is a good person, making the best of what life throws at him.

I don't want to say much about the plot here as I read it without having a clue and not knowing where it was going was good. Roughly, it's 25ish years in the life of a Baltimore family. It's ten perfect chapters - each could stand alone as a short story but they build up to a fantastic whole novel. Bite them off one at a time and savour them. ( )

人生只有一回，若不能好好把握，至少也好好揮霍！誰會賠上僅此唯一的人生，扮個大聖人？和樂融融的貝德羅一​家人，喜慶節日總少不了拿手私房菜：法式冷盤。感恩節的火雞、生日的蛋糕哪裡夠看？沒有法式冷盤，就不像貝​

然而，十八歲的伊恩•貝德羅脫口而出的一句話，竟讓哥哥嫂嫂相繼自殺，留下三個孩子。貝德羅家一夕變味，​再也沒有法式冷盤了。為了彌補自己一時衝動所造成的遺憾，伊恩一肩挑起養育侄兒女的責任。 ​

贖罪的路一定艱澀難行嗎？二十多年過去，蒼白蕭索的中年伊恩如何咀嚼自己的人生？當法式冷盤再度端上貝德​羅家的餐桌，或許答案已悄然浮現心底。​