Anne Tyler's characters are quirky - that's a given. And this is an especially quirky and interesting lot. Although an early book, this is a vintage Tyler plot - the woman who needs to run away from home.

Thirty-five-year-old Charlotte is in the process of leaving her family - again - when she is taken hostage by the world's most ineffectual bank robber. The two flee by bus to liberate the robber's girl friend from a home for unwed mothers, and in the process we learn Charlotte's story.

It's an early Tyler and the characters are a bit over-the-top, but nevertheless worth reading. ( )

i must say that Anne Tyler certainly has a knack for creating remarkably quirky characters that are nonetheless lovable on some level...this is my 3rd tyler book....Searching for Caleb & The Clock Winder also had unusual folks that i never would spend much time with if i encountered them in my life, but i am always intrigued enough to see what happens to them, rooting for them along the way.....i'll probably read others...after all they are already on the shelf!!! ( )

Around and around until they get it right: Charlotte as a daughter, Charlotte as a mother, Charlotte as a wife. She has a most interesting travelling companion: the bank-robber who holds her hostage. Tyler is ever generous and sympathic to all of her characters. ( )

As usual, Anne Tyler writes with a sharp, clear view of life, and of her characters. Charlotte, who is in the bank about to cash a check so she can run away from her husband and children, is instead taken hostage by a bank robber who bungles the job; she finds herself taking the same journey away but under very different circumstances.

The book's form alternates between telling one chapter of the journey with the would-be bank robber, Jake, and one of life before her new status as hostage. With a gun in her ribs, and her past behind her, Charlotte stares enthralled at the passing countryside and relives her memories.

And as the book progresses it's little wonder that Charlotte, for all her instinctive desire to get away from Jake, is captivated by the life outside the window. Her life as a child, and then as a married woman, was unequivocally dull, tragically so. Charlotte has spent her life - beginning as a child - planning to leave all behind her and just get away.

Charlotte's resignation permeates the book, and it isn't hard to understand why she boards the bus away so peaceably, without a hint of a struggle. It's obvious that it is more than just the gun doing its job, as from the start Jake is an inept criminal. This resignation gives the work a sad, dark tone, and many times Charlotte is just so frustrating as she watches her life sail by, with a glum outlook.

There are spots of humour however, which relieve the otherwise unrelenting, quiet tragedy. Tyler is a genius when it comes to telling a story, and the flow of events, and such humour is very deliberate I'm sure. She also has a knack for creating characters that aren't exactly likable, but are ones a reader engages with nevertheless. Consequently, I was fascinated to the end.

Spooky and lots of fun. A woman about to run away from home is taken hostage and ends up miles away from home anyway. Incredible read.

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