Finding Beauty in the Ordinary
a review of Anne Tyler’s Redhead by the Side of the Road
by Norah Vawter
Anne Tyler’s latest novel, Redhead by the Side of the Road, is slim, almost novella length. Its story is small in the very best sense of the word. There’s no hero or villain, no big sweeping plot. Instead, the novel dives deep into the little things that make up a life. No detail is too small or seemingly dull for Tyler, who’s at her best when she’s showing us the beauty in the ordinary, and reminding us how important it is to truly see ourselves. And so with Redhead, she plunges us gently but intently into the everyday life of a man who’s given up on being happy, because he’s obsessed with the idea of perfection and order. Like so many Anne Tyler novels, Redhead takes place in Baltimore, where she has lived since the 1960s. Over five decades, the author has published 23 novels. Breathing Lessons won the Pulitzer Prize in 1989.
Forty-something Micah Mortimer has carved out a narrow, safe existence as an IT guy, a building manager, and a man who keeps his basement apartment spotless by following a cleaning calendar like tidy is his religion. One day of the week is vacuuming day, another is floor-mopping day (not to be confused with kitchen day, which involves cleaning the counters, appliances, and such, and one complete cabinet. He rotates the cabinets.) It’s not a big apartment, but Micah is ruthless in his pursuit of tidiness, and we see that the rest of his life is also built around an obsession with order. Once the shining star of his working-class Baltimore family, and the first to go to college, Micah cut himself off from a promising career because interactions with other people got too complicated.
Relationships with women always fail because Micah finds fault with every girlfriend he has. Now, he’s dating an elementary school teacher named Cass, who really seems to understand his quirks and forgive his flaws, but he’s in danger of losing her too. He’s too closed off to any sort of risk; he can’t truly let her into his life. Luckily, a teenage kid shows up on Micah’s doorstep, claiming to be his son, and throwing off his routine. I’m not going to tell you whether the kid, Brink, is Micah’s son, because I think uncovering that mystery is a true delight of the book. But I will say that Brink acts as a catalyst for Micah’s personal growth. He is just the disruption Micah needs to nudge him into thinking outside of his carefully constructed box.
I first discovered Anne Tyler in high school, when a friend’s mother encouraged us both to read Ladder of Years, a book about a middle-aged woman who walks away from a beach day with her family, wearing only a swimsuit, and starts a new life. I was sixteen, and it seemed odd that I was so invested in this middle-aged mother’s life and her anxieties, especially because she was the type of person I would have overlooked in everyday life. But I read the book three times, poring over little idiosyncratic moments, identifying with the character not because I understood what it was like to be married or have children, but because I knew what it felt like to feel out of place. To stand on a beach and want to walk away, to fantasize about finding that elusive thing I was missing.
We identify with Anne Tyler’s characters not necessarily because we’ve been in their specific circumstances (though we may have), but because the author is so meticulous in her attention to detail, and so empathetic in her examination of our longing and our flaws. When you get right down to it, we all know what it’s like to feel trapped, or to make selfish, petty choices, or to become obsessed with perfection because we’re afraid of screwing up.
Over her long and impressive career, Tyler has focused on the mundane, the little quirks of everyday life, the minutiae of moments that make up a human life, a love affair, a family. Tyler is a student of what it means to be human, and she’s spent decades writing novels about ordinary people going about their ordinary lives, almost always in Baltimore, where she has lived for over 50 years. Her books are rooted in this city. I appreciate the palpable sense of place, and also the way she puts this smaller city on the literary map. Anne Tyler shares her Baltimore with us by doing what she does best, honing in on the small things, like Micah’s morning run through his North Baltimore neighborhood, running on “cracked, stubbled sidewalk,” passing the Mission of Kindness, an auto-parts store, and a lake-trout joint.
Micah’s journey is painfully slow. I kept talking out loud to him as I read, urging him to do something, say something, ask important questions. Every move forward is small, halting, as Micah struggles to take steps that risk heartbreak or disappointment, and to allow himself and others to have flaws. Sometimes if you read a book and you’re far ahead of the character, in terms of understanding what needs to be done, it can be maddening. But Anne Tyler’s glacial speed is brilliant here. Micah has closed himself off from his emotions, to the point that he doesn’t know what he’s actually feeling. Emotions are the antithesis of a cleaning calendar. Love is sloppy. Attachments lead to disappointment and tears. Of course, he doesn’t figure everything out at once. And, outside of fiction, how often do we have one big epiphany that fixes everything?
Micah Mortimer is not a tragic figure. He’s an ordinary man who’s stopped letting himself breathe. It’s an ordinary, small sadness. He’s just given up. Micah makes me want to pay attention to moments when I want to give up on myself. I remember the two years after my son was born when I was stuck in postpartum depression, mild enough, most days at least, to not interfere with my ability to function. I remember how small and muted my life felt. I didn’t write much. I watched way too much television. It wasn’t a tragic, terrible time. Good things happened. But none of the colors were bright enough. Not wanting to admit the truth to friends and family, I made my world narrower and narrower, just like Micah does. Until my sister dragged me to New Orleans, my hometown, for a spur-of-the-moment getaway. While I was going through the motions, pretending to be happy, somehow I could see my life more clearly. I realized that I wanted my colors back. And so I reached out for help. I started talking. Every moment after that was a little bit better. Slowly and patiently, my world opened up.
In Redhead by the Side of the Road, Micah also begins talking. It’s such a simple thing, conversation, but words are powerful. Voicing his ideas, asking questions, it helps this guarded character move past his own walls, helps him move into the future, instead of being stuck inside a cleaning calendar.
Right now, when the world feels like it’s burning, it might seem counterintuitive to read a book about the minutiae of our daily, domestic lives. But I started reading Redhead shortly after the COVID crisis began, and this book felt like a balm for my soul. The novel is so warm and inviting. Reading a book that doesn’t have a political bone in its body feels refreshing. But it also feels so damned relevant. Despite the insanity going on outside, I’m stuck in my home with my family. Cleaning (without Micah’s enthusiasm or his calendar). Engaged in all these ordinary moments, conversations, petty disputes and flickers of beauty. Tyler’s books are always about the home, and right now we’re all stuck in our respective homes. This is probably the perfect moment to read Anne Tyler. If you get the bug, there are 22 more books to slowly and methodically devour after this one.
Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the author of more than twenty novels. Her twentieth novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2015. Her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland. www.annetyler.com
You can read recent interviews with Anne Tyler on Redhead on the Side of the Road and her writing career in The Guardian and The Columbus Dispatch, and also in BBC News on why she won’t be writing about the Corona Virus. You can hear her read from Back When We Were Grownups in 2001 and hear her interviewed by Diane Rehm in 2015. Find Anne Tyler’s books at many local bookstores, including Baltimore’s Ivy Bookshop.