Anne Tyler - A Patchwork Planet

She would turn and say, “Me?” She’d be this average, commonplace woman, maybe even homely, maybe chapped-lipped or shiny-nosed, depending on the season. “What for?” she would ask, and he would see then that he had been mistaken — that there were no angels, after all. Or that his angels were lots of people he had never suspected.

Where, exactly, would I get hold of a gray cloth ledger with maroon leather corners?

Martine passed through the foyer, lugging a carton. “We’re running out of space,” she told me. “I’m going to start stacking things here.” Then she said, “Yikes.” She’d just about bumped into the alternative-rock kid. He veered around her, cradling his boom box in both arms. I guess his mother had finally had enough of it.

Another boy sat at the dining-room table — so far I’d counted four boys and two girls — reading a comic book. He didn’t look up until I said, “Uh …,” because right on the carpet in front of my feet I saw a disgusting brown mess. “Is this dog do?” I asked the kid. “Or what? Is there a dog in the house? There’s dog do on the rug.”

“It’s fate,” he told me coolly.

I said, “Oh.” Then I said, “Okay.” I waited a moment, and finally I decided to head on into the kitchen. It wasn’t till I’d cleared another shelf that I figured out he’d said, “It’s fake.” I grinned.

By now Sophia would be arriving in Philadelphia. She’d be clicking across the station toward the Information island, carrying the envelope and looking around for Natalie. Of course, she’d seen Natalie once before, but that was only briefly and some time ago. She would be wondering whether they’d recognize each other. Maybe she would notice a woman in a red coat, and she would think, Her? and then realize the woman was too plump, or too fair. (And just then the real Natalie walked across my mind — her straight, slim figure and tranquil face, her grave, brown, considering eyes.)

I fished a screwdriver out of my pocket and removed a rusted can opener from the wall above the stove. I put it in the box we had set beside the back door for trash. Mrs. Alford’s brother said, “Oh! What’s this?” I hadn’t even heard him arrive. He bent over the box to study the can opener. “All I have at home is that hand-grip kind; nothing that hangs on a wall,” he told me.

“Then why don’t you take this one?” I asked. “It’s only going out to the garbage.”

“Yes, perhaps … It’s a pity to throw it away, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely,” I told him.

He clutched the can opener to his chest and padded off. In the dining room I heard him say, “There’s dog do on the rug, Johnny,” but I didn’t catch Johnny’s answer.

Sophia would have stood waiting for several minutes now. She’d be looking to her left and her right, biting her lower lip, her eyebrows quirked in annoyance. (I pictured her in the feather coat, although more often lately she wore something beige and belted that she’d bought on sale last spring.) Maybe she would ask the Information clerk, “Has anybody been here that you’ve noticed — a woman who seemed to be meeting someone?”

She’d be glancing down at the envelope more and more frequently, wondering if it was time yet to get Natalie’s phone number out.

The last thing left on the wall was one of those rechargeable mixers. I unhooked it and placed it in the carton of utensils. Then I unscrewed the mounting plate, and just as I was lifting it from the wall I felt the most amazing rush of happiness wash over me. I didn’t know at first where it came from. I was looking at the mounting plate, is all, not thinking of anything special, I was staring at those figure-eight-shaped holes you slide over the screws. They reminded me of something. They brought to mind the brass clasps on Martine’s overalls.

Martine walked back into the kitchen, dusting off her hands, and she picked up another carton. I said, “Martine?” and she said, “What,” and I said, “Haply I think on thee.”

“Huh?” she said.

But I could tell she knew what I meant.

Out in the dining room, Mrs. Alford’s brother was demonstrating his new can opener. “Barnaby was planning to put this in the trash,” he said. “Can you imagine? Why, there’s years and years of use left in it!” Upstairs, the boom box was playing something noisy and disorganized. And in Philadelphia, Sophia was opening the envelope. She was staring down at the money inside and drawing a quick breath inward. She glanced around the train station. Then she unfolded my note. Sophia , she read, you never did realize. I am a man you can trust.

Q: Your protagonist in this novel, Barnaby Gaitlin, has been described as an average, ordinary man. Is this how you would describe him?AT: I think Barnaby is average and ordinary only to the extent that most people are average and ordinary — that is, not very, if you look carefully enough.Q: Barnaby is, among other things, a man struggling to cast off the weight of his past. How successful is he, and indeed any of us, in doing so?AT: I do believe that Barnaby is at least largely successful in getting out from under the weight of his past — that’s where the plot derives its movement.Q: At the close of this novel, we are left wondering just exactly who is Barnaby’s angel. How would you answer this question?AT: Barnaby has not just one but many angels — the network of people he lives among who see him for the good man he is and wish him well and do what they can to ease his life.Q: You delightfully skewer class pretensions in this novel, most notably in the form of Barnaby’s mother, Margot, and explore the cost and meaning of class mobility in America. Why is this such a central theme in your work?AT: I’ve always enjoyed studying the small clues that indicate a particular class level. And I am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America, even though it’s not supposed to be.Q: You have been credited by reviewer James Bowman in the Wall Street Journal with creating fictional businesses with great potential, Rent-a-Back being the most recent and best example. What was the inspiration for Rent a Back?AT: Rent-a-Back’s inspiration was pure wishful thinking. I would love to have such a service available to me.Q: Many reviewers have commented upon your powerful, realistic, and humane portrayal of elderly characters in this novel as well as the relative lack of sustained exploration of old age in contemporary American fiction. Do you agree with this assessment of the state of the field?AT: There are a number of good novels about old people — I don’t see a lack.Q: Why did you choose to create such a wide array of elderly characters and make the often painful process of aging a central focus of this novel?AT: Time, in general, has always been a central obsession of mine — what it does to people, how it can constitute a plot all on its own. So naturally, I am interested in old age.Q: If you had to choose one of the family units in this novel as your own, which would you choose and why?AT: For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood.Q: Barnaby is a character who lives very much in his own head. Was it difficult to bring this loner to such vivid life on the page?AT: I had trouble at first getting Barnaby to “open up” to me — he was as thorny and difficult with me as he was with his family, and we had a sort of sparring, tussling relationship until I grew more familiar with him.Q: Which characters) presented the greatest challenge to you as a writer?AT: Sophia was a challenge, because I had less sympathy with her than with the other characters, and therefore I had more trouble presenting her fairly.Q: How did you come to choose writing as your life’s work, and what sustains you in this often solitary vocation?AT: I didn’t really choose to write; I more or less fell into it. It’s true that it’s a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them.Q: How does the writing process work for you? Has it changed over the years?AT: I never think about the actual process of writing. I suppose I have a superstition about examining it too closely.Q: What advice would you give struggling writers trying to get published?AT: I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them — without a thought about publication — and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside.Q: How do your own experiences impact (or not) upon your work in terms of subject matter and themes and so forth?AT: None of my own experiences ever finds its way into my work. However, the stages of my life — motherhood, middle age, etc. — often influence my subject matter.Q: What themes do you find yourself consistently addressing in your work?AT: I don’t think of my work in terms of themes. I’m just trying to tell a story.Q: Because you are an author with a substantial body of work, reviewers and readers alike cannot resist choosing their favorite book. Do you have a favorite among your own works?AT: My favorite of my books is Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant , becomes it comes closest to the concept I had when I started writing it.Q: As a writer who is frequently cited as an important influence on your peers, what writers and/or works have most influenced you?AT: A major influence on my writing was reading Eudora Welty’s short stories at age fourteen. It wasn’t till then that I realized that the kind of people I saw all around me could be fit subjects for literature.Q: What books would you recommend reading groups add to their lists?AT: Books that cause fiercely passionate arguments, pro and con, seem to me the best candidates for reading groups. For instance, I would recommend Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children. No one is ever neutral about that book.Q: What would you most like your readers to get out of this novel?AT: My fondest hope for any of my novels is that readers will feel, after finishing it, that for awhile they have actually stepped inside another person’s life and come to feel related to that person.Q: What is next for you? Are you working on a new project?AT: I am in the very beginning stages of a novel whose central character is sixty-five years old.