A Life of Anne Tyler
(By Anne Wellman)
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| Author | Anne Wellman |
But for many decades, Anne avoided all public appearances and publicity. "My life has nothing to do with my writing," she said. In her novels no events came from real life, she insisted, and her characters' traits were definitely not hers; she was far more interested in trying to lead a different life through her fiction than in reliving her own, and wanted readers to believe in the world she had created without wondering if they were reading about real experiences. In any case, Anne claimed, she had led a life so conventional that even her biographer would nod off in the middle of it. But as time went on, Anne was to concede that her own stages of life did emerge within her work—bringing up small children or adolescents, empty nesting, aging, all were reflected in her novels, although only after the period she needed for things to settle in her mind before she could write about them. In many of the later novels her own children were even deliberately inserted as tiny cameo appearances, as were their spouses and offspring, once on the scene. Even strands of her own personality had, after all, found their way in.
This is Anne's life, far more interesting than she ever made out. Most of it was spent in Baltimore, a city ever present in her work and almost a character in itself. Her story reveals the many experiences and preoccupations that surfaced in her writing, which, in addition to the twenty-four novels (not always received with applause), included at least fifty short stories and a little nonfiction. Anne emerges as a woman of great charm, warmth, and humor, but one who spent many years secluded from the world in order to concentrate on her writing, and was far bleaker in her estimation of the human race than might ever be guessed.”
