Anne Tyler — The Amateur Marriage

Chatto & Windus 2004 Paperback, 320pp. Michael and Pauline seemed like the perfect couple - young, good-looking, made for each other. The moment Pauline, a stranger to the Polish Eastern Avenue neighborhood of Baltimore, walked into his mother’s grocery store, Michael was smitten. And in the heat of World War II fervour, they marry at haste. Pauline, impulsive, impractical, tumbles hit-or-miss through life; Michael, plodding, cautious, and judgmental, proceeds deliberately. In time their foolish quarrels take their toll. A 17 year old daughter disappears, and some years later this fractious pair is forced to pick up the pieces from Haight-Ashbury, and start being parents all over again to a small boy called Pagan. Flighty Pauline clings to the notion that the rifts can always be patched. To the unyielding Michael, they become unbearable. Caught in what feels like a practice marriage but which couldn't be more real, they seem to be tearing each other apart - until someone, unexpectedly, shockingly, kicks over the traces. Some edge foxing, cover rubbed. (ISBN: 9780701177355). Fair.