Anne Tyler’s characters are such touchingly imperfect human beings and their very ordinary lives are so affecting that they become absolutely real to the reader. You feel that you are listening in on their conversations and not just reading dialogues in a novel. I first read this book more than 30 years ago and it led me to go on an Anne Tyler binge; all her novels were at the least excellent, and all had characters that were so utterly believable and ordinary and deeply affecting. After all this time, I happened to see this title on a list of e-books and decided to re-read it. And it was just as wonderful the second time.

I read it but the book was full of people's sad lives. No brightness whatsoever.

Brilliant! A family seen from all sides, including the good and the bad. Even better, for me, was that this was about a family wherein the father had taken off (mine was the same) and how that one fact is carried by every character, every relationship they have, for the rest of their lives.

A good read. It's a wonder that Ezra and Cody did not end up bitter enemies. Jenny was a disappointment as I thought her character would be more assertive because of her ambition to go into medicine. How could a controlling and hateful Mother go from a monster to her children and then in later years do a complete turn around was a little puzzling. All in all a good scenario of what life is like when a Father leaves his family and responsibilities to a unbalanced woman!