"A Patchwork Planet" by Anne Tyler

Barnaby is the bad boy of the family. He had a criminal past and a failed marriage, he lives in a basement, and he works as an odd job man. He regularly has impulses to be rude, or inappropriate, or to pry into other people's private lives. Turning thirty, he thinks he is aimless and drifting, neither good nor successful. But he knows that he is a man who can be trusted and others see him as very caring and compassionate.

This novel rambles through a year in Barnaby's life. He muddles through his relationship with his daughter, living with her mother and step-father, and he muddles through a new and deepening relationship with Sophia, and he doesn't see that co-worker Martine has fallen for him.

The book has little plot as such. We see how Barnaby copes when he is accused of stealing from one of his clients. He tries hard to save money to repay his mother the debt she is always moaning about. He sells his car and buys, with Martine, a half share in a truck. He is unfaithful to his girlfriend. This is real life in all its mess and tangling. It is summarised when Barnaby sees the patchwork quilt that one of his elderly clients has finally finished: "Planet Earth ... was makeshift and haphazard, clumsily cobbled together, overlapping and crowded and likely to fall to pieces at any moment ... it was sort of pretty, in an offbeat, unexpected way." (C 14)

But if it doesn't have a plot that doesn't mean that it is not gripping. The book opens with Barnaby trailing Sophia on the train from Baltimore to Philadelphia carrying a sealed packet that she has been n by a stranger with a hard luck tale. The half way point is marked by triumph, as Barnaby realises he loves Sophia, and instantly (the very next sentence) Barnaby is accused of theft. He has a really bad Monday, down in the dumps, ending with a sexual mistake, and this is immediately followed by the most life-affirming Tuesday. It is fast-paced and gripping and oh so real.

"Finally, you're just with who you're with. You've signed on with her, put in half a century with her, grown to know her as well as you know yourself or even better, and she's become the right person. Or the only person, might be more to the point." (C 11)

Other great moments:

• "The symphony on the stereo was building louder and louder, ending and ending forever. It reminded me of some huge, frantic animal crashing around the bars of its cage." (C 4)
• "The girls I hung out with in those days were more body mates than soul mates." (C 4)
• "My angel seemed to be more of the nagging kind." (C 4)
• "You can't get much more predictable than a children's ballet recital." (C 6)
• "Wish I could rearrange my life so I'd never have to deal anymore with another human being." (C 6)
• "Isn't it ridiculous ... how even in the face of death it still matters that the price of oranges has gone up" (C 7)
• "Learned to read so young, he used to check in the child development books to see how he ought to be acting." (C 7)
• "I barely grunted when she made some comment on the scenery. ... It seemed I was my difficult, unappreciative self again. For all the good it did, I might as well not have bothered with my epiphany in the park." (C 11)
• "I remember reflecting on the bizarreness of jail as a punishment - like sending someone to his room, really." (C 13)

This is a portrait of life written with warmth and wonder. It has empathy and sympathy and it resonates with all those who discover that the easiest way to make God laugh is to tell him your plans. This is the triumph of flawed humanity, an everyman masterpiece. Brilliant!

January 2020; 288 pages

Other great Anne Tyler books reviewed in this blog:

• A Spool of Blue Thread
• Vinegar Girl (a rewrite of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew