The major new novel from the beloved prize-winning author -- a brilliantly perceptive
painfully true and funny journey deep into one family's foibles from the 1950s right up to the
changed world of today When the kids are grown and Mercy Garrett gradually moves herself out of
the family home everyone is determined not to notice. Over at her studio she wants space and
silence. She won't allow any family clutter. Not even their cat Desmond. Yet it is a clutter
of untidy moments that forms the Garretts' family life over the decades whether that's a
painstaking Easter lunch or giving a child a ride a fateful train journey or an unexpected
homecoming. And it all begins in 1959 with a family holiday to a cabin by a lake. It's the
only one the Garretts will ever take but its effects will ripple through the generations.
'Exquisitely crafted tender hilarious devastatingly precise I loved this powerful
meditation on the small and often unvoiced moments that can make up a life' RACHEL JOYCE 'Such
joyous immersion I lost myself and loved this superbly imperfect family' TESSA HADLEY 'A
faultless novel effortlessly profound. I read it in two sittings totally immersed' VICTORIA
HISLOP 'If Anne Tyler isn't the best writer in the world who is?' BBC RADIO 4 WOMAN'S HOUR 4
WOMAN'S HOUR
