Earthly Possessions

Anne Tyler writes some of the best fiction around on family relationships. She also has an enormous backlist that I want to slowly make my way through. I was a little surprised to see that Earthly Possessions opens with a bank robbery but soon treads familiar territory about family and dysfunctional relationships. It’s also a good (accidental) insight into American life in the 1970s before everything was complicated with the internet, mobile phones and computers.

Charlotte is planning to leave her husband (not for the first time) and is waiting at the local small town bank for some money. She is unwittingly caught up in a bank robbery and taken hostage by the offender who is planning to drive to Florida to meet a friend and spring his show more pregnant girlfriend from a home for unmarried mothers. As she and Jake drive, Charlotte reflects on her life and what brought her to this moment. From the guilt she experienced as a young child, to picking up the slack for an extended household, she’s been going with the line of least resistance. It soon turns into that kind of relationship for her and Jake –rubbish collecting in the car as she talks him through his life choices and the unexpected changes in plan. Charlotte gets stronger as they enter Florida making her own choice to end this odd situation – but what will she choose for herself?

Anne Tyler excels at the quirky features of individuals and families. Charlotte’s storytelling explores marriages that were never quite honest with each other and things said in childhood that were taken to heart and held fast in adulthood. Charlotte’s family home is also a silent character – big with endless rooms for strays and mountains of furniture, right in the commercial part of town that’s gloomy yet a drawcard for the photography studio attached. The house contains Charlotte’s history and seemingly future too, try as she might to change things. The story of Charlotte’s parents and husband’s family as just as dysfunctional – the mother than ran off with the father in law, the sons who didn’t know what to do with themselves and the parish members that attach themselves to her husband for years on end. It’s a mystery to Charlotte as she navigates what might have been against what things are. Her story is just as fascinating as Jake’s, as she comes to the realisation that it doesn’t have to be the same life she returns to.

I did like the unintended view into small town America in the 1970s and earlier, where a security camera in the bank was big news. Soda fountains, a radio repair shop and cars with keys in the ignition – it’s a different world. (Although I’ve never heard of a late night bank that’s open). It’s surprisingly charming, yet the issues still feel modern in the twenty-first century as people reflect on their lives and choices. It’s a great story of family and relationships bound up in an unintentional road trip novel.

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This is a super quick read. The fact that it was a made-for-television movie back in the 90s should tell you something: really good but without prolonged drama; couldn't make it to the big screen. Here's the quick and dirty of the plot: Charlotte Emory is at the bank, waiting to clean out her savings so she can run away from her married life. She's the bored housewife of a boring preacher. While waiting to change her whole life, suddenly it is changed for her. She gets caught up in a robbery and is taken hostage. Since her captor is practically half her age she isn't exactly afraid of him, or the gun he waves in her face. Almost willingly Charlotte finds herself on a road trip with Jake Simms, Jr - demolition derby racer, escapee from show more jail, and father to his teenage girlfriend's unborn child. The three make an interesting pair. Tyler's writing is sharp and funny. She gives us alternating time frames, bouncing between Charlotte's escape in present day and the past - as if to explain how Charlotte's life ended up so complicated. show less

3.5 stars, rounded down.

Anne Tyler can take quirky, oddball, and unorthodox and turn it into familiar, approachable, and honest in the course of a 250 page novel. It is one of her strengths. You begin, seeing her characters as goofier than you, apart from the norm, and you end by seeing them as very human, even a bit of a kindred spirit.

Charlotte Emory is about to leave her husband when she is unexpectedly abducted by a bank robber. For most of us, a gun in our side and being forced into a car with an unknown man would be crippling, for Charlotte it is almost an adventure, at last. What it actually becomes is an opportunity for Charlotte to consider her life in a different light, and while she learns more about herself, so do we.
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This is not one of her best works, but it felt very familiar to me (without feeling predictable) and I enjoyed reading it. Nice break from the disappointments I have had lately. A break to regroup and consider the next step...we all need that from time to time. show less

At thirty-five years old, Charlotte Emory has always lived a quiet, conventional life in Clarion, Maryland. She lives as simply as possible, but being a pastor's wife, especially when she isn't all that religious herself, is particularly hard on her. Her husband Saul, is a man who truly lives his faith, opening his doors to the downtrodden and those most in need; but for Charlotte, her life has become extremely unhappy.

Seeking to simplify everything, Charlotte decides one day to leave her husband. However, her last trip to the bank turns Charlotte's life in an entirely different direction when the bank is robbed. A restless young man in a nylon jacket takes her hostage - and soon the two are heading to Florida, into an unknown future, show more and a most unexpected fate.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It was a very quick read, and the story gripped me right from the start. It was interesting for me to learn about Charlotte's past, and I truly wanted to know what would happen next. I give Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler a definite A+! and will certainly keep my eyes open for more books by this author. show less

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 show more 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. show less

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.

Charlotte Emory is unsatisfied with her marriage and her entire life. Her mother supposedly believed she had been switched at birth and Charlotte has always held on to this idea that somewhere a plump blond (like her mother) is living the life that dark, quiet Charlotte was meant to live.

As the novel opens, Charlotte is standing in line at the bank, waiting to withdraw money in order to leave her husband. Instead, she's taken hostage by a bumbling, young bank robber. Chapters alternate between Charlotte's experiences as a hostage and her life previously, why she is unhappy and has tried to escape her life on many occasions.

The only other Anne Tyler novel I've read, [b:Back When We Were Grownups|31178|Back When We Were Grownups|Anne show more Tyler|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388202509s/31178.jpg|2731250], also features a protagonist who feels like she's living someone else's life. Obviously I don't have enough experience to say this is a frequent theme in Tyler's writing, but she's visited it at least twice.

The writing is good, the characters are interesting, but the novel never really went anywhere for me and I found the ending lackluster. show less