Ladder of Years: A Novel

Anne Tyler

ISBN 10: 0449910571 / ISBN 13: 9780449910573

Published by Random House USA Inc, 1996

About this Item

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOKBALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION, declares the headline. Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead is last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing nothing more than a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To her husband and three almost-grown children, she has vanished without trace or reason. But for Delia, who feels like a tiny gnat buzzing around her family's edges, walking away from it all is not a premeditated act, but an impulse that will lead her into a new, exciting, and unimagined life . . . . TYLER DETAILS DELIA'S ADVENTURE WITH GREAT SKIL . . . As so often in her earlier fiction--Celestial Navigation, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist, and her nine other novels--[she] creates distinct characters caught in poignantly funny situations. . . .Tyler writes with a clarity that makes the commonplace seem fresh and the pathetic touching.--The New York TimesUTERLY COMPELING. . .WONDERFULY SATISFYING. . .Ladder of Years is virtually flawless.--Chicago TribuneA 'PAGE-TURNER' IN THE BEST SENSE . . . One wants to lightly caress the pages of the story because one cares for Ms. Tyler's touchingly flawed characters. . . . Both madcap and genteel, Anne Tyler knows as well as anyone that 'human beings lead many lives.' Casually, delightfully, Ladder of Years will tell you just how we humans manage this trick.--The Baltimore Sun.

Seller Inventory # 00090768429

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Ladder of Years: A Novel
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0449910571
• ISBN 13: 9780449910573
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Fair

About this title

Synopsis

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Breathing Lessons

"BALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION."

The headlines are all the same: Beloved mother and wife Delia Grinstead was last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing only a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To the best of her family's knowledge, she has disappeared without a trace. But Delia didn't disappear. She ran.

Exhausted with her routine and everyone else's plans for her, Delia needed an out, a chance to make a new life for herself and to become a different person. The new Delia can let go of all the hurt and resentment that left her stuck in her past. As she eagerly sheds the pieces of herself she no longer needs, Delia discovers feelings of passion and wonder she'd long since forgotten. The thrill of walking away from it all leads to a newfound sense of self and the feeling that she is, finally, the star of her own life story.

About the Author

ANNE TYLER was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the author of more than twenty novels. Her twentieth novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2015. Her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.