French Braid

A major new novel from the beloved prize-winning author - a freshly observed, funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one family's foibles, from the 1950s right up to the changed world of today.

The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever venture far from home, but in some ways they have never been further apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family's orbit, for reasons none of them understands. Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts' influence on one another ripples unmistakably through each generation.

Full of heartbreak and hilarity, French Braid is classic Anne Tyler: a stirring, uncannily insightful novel bursting with warmth and humour that illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives, the impossibility of breaking free from those who love us, and how close - yet how unknowable - every family is to itself.