Items related to The Amateur Marriage

Tyler, Anne The Amateur Marriage ISBN 13: 9780345470614

The Amateur Marriage - Softcover

 
9780345470614: The Amateur Marriage
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
From the inimitable Anne Tyler, a rich and compelling novel about a mismatched marriage--and its consequences, spanning three generations.

They 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 (though she lived only twenty minutes away), walked into his mother's grocery store, Michael was smitten. And in the heat of World War II fervor, they are propelled into a hasty wedding. But they never should have married.

Pauline, impulsive, impractical, tumbles hit-or-miss through life; Michael, plodding, cautious, judgmental, proceeds deliberately. While other young marrieds, equally ignorant at the start, seemed to grow more seasoned, Pauline and Michael remain amateurs. In time their foolish quarrels take their toll. Even when they find themselves, almost thirty years later, loving, instant parents to a little grandson named Pagan, whom they rescue from Haight-Ashbury, they still cannot bridge their deep-rooted differences. Flighty Pauline clings to the notion that the rifts can always be patched. To the unyielding Michael, they become unbearable.

From the sound of the cash register in the old grocery to the counterculture jargon of the sixties, from the miniskirts to the multilayered apparel of later years, Anne Tyler captures the evocative nuances of everyday life during these decades with such telling precision that every page brings smiles of recognition. Throughout, as each of the competing voices bears witness, we are drawn ever more fully into the complex entanglements of family life in this wise, embracing, and deeply perceptive novel.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:
Anne Tyler's The Amateur Marriage is not so much a novel as a really long argument. Michael is a good boy from a Polish neighbourhood in Baltmore; Pauline is a harum-scarum, bright-cheeked girl who blows into Michael's family's grocery store at the outset of World War II. She appears with a bloodied brow, supported by a gaggle of girlfriends. Michael patches her up, and neither of them are ever the same. Well, not the same as they were before, but pretty much the same as everyone else. After the war, they live over the shop with Michael's mother until they've saved enough to move to the suburbs. There they remain with their three children, until the onset of the 60s, when their eldest daughter runs away to San Francisco. Their marriage survives for a while, finally crumbling in the 70s.

If this all sounds a tad generic, Tyler's case isn't helped by the characteristics she's given the two spouses. Him: repressed, censorious, quiet. Her: voluble, emotional, romantic. Mars, meet Venus. What marks this couple, though, and what makes them come alive, is their bitter, unproductive, tooth-and-nail fighting. Tyler is exploring the way that ordinary-seeming, prosperous people can survive in emotional poverty for years on end. She gets just right the tricks Michael and Pauline play on themselves in order to stay together: "How many times", Pauline asks herself, "when she was weary of dealing with Michael, had she forced herself to recall the way he'd looked that first day? The slant of his fine cheekbones, the firming of his lips as he pressed the adhesive tape in place on her forehead". Only in antogonism do Michael and Pauline find a way to express themselves. --Claire Dederer, Amazon.com

Review:
"An ode to the complexities of familial love, the centripetal and centrifugal forces that keep families together and send their members flying apart, the supremely ordinary pleasures and frustrations of middle-class American life."
--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"Tyler ranges over 60 years of American experience... from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the anniversary of that day in 2001...as she tracks one couple's domestic disturbances...[Her] writing is beautifully accurate, more often than not with a glinting vein of humor."
-William H. Pritchard, New York Times Book Review, front cover

"She evokes the entire sweep of [a marriage] with uncommon delicacy & dignity... gives us the feeling of being inside Michael and Pauline Anton's marriage."
-John Freeman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"She traces the stormy union of two people who love but can't stand each other."
-Kirkus Reviews

"This 'wickedly good' author has come to represent the best of today's American literature... She is an exquisite chronicler of the everyday
...Her characters are at once infuriating and endearing, conservative yet quietly eccentric."
-Lisa Allardice, The Observer, London

"Her command of what will move a story forward & engross a reader is faultless."
-Martha Southgate, Baltimore Sun

"She expertly explores the perils of marriage... Wise & observant...She has the uncanny ability to expose the most confusing contradictions of love." -Connie Ogle, Miami Herald

"In the fervor of WWII, Michael and Pauline rush head-long into marriage, then live in a constant state of turmoil ...We watch safely from a distance like a busybody neighbor hiding behind the curtains, judgmental yet fascinated."
-Kim Askew, Elle magazine

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherVintage
  • Publication date2004
  • ISBN 10 0345470613
  • ISBN 13 9780345470614
  • BindingPaperback
  • Number of pages320
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780099469599: The Amateur Marriage

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780099469599
Publisher: Vintage, 2004
Softcover

  • 9781400042074: The Amateur Marriage: A Novel

    Alfred..., 2004
    Hardcover

  • 9780345472458: The Amateur Marriage

    Ballan..., 2006
    Softcover

  • 9780375433368: The Amateur Marriage: A Novel (Tyler, Anne (Large Print))

    Random..., 2004
    Hardcover

  • 9780345477132: The Amateur Marriage: A Novel

    Random..., 2004
    Softcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

Tyler, Anne
ISBN 10: 0345470613 ISBN 13: 9780345470614
New Soft cover Quantity: 1
Seller:
BooksByLisa
(Highland Park, IL, U.S.A.)

Book Description Soft cover. Condition: New. Book. Seller Inventory # ABE-1668010004380

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 9.80
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Tyler, Anne
ISBN 10: 0345470613 ISBN 13: 9780345470614
New Quantity: 1
Seller:
TheJunkStore
(Russellvillle, KY, U.S.A.)

Book Description #N/A. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # ron153-003

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 7.26
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 2.77
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Tyler, Anne
Published by Vintage (2004)
ISBN 10: 0345470613 ISBN 13: 9780345470614
New Softcover Quantity: > 20
Seller:
Lakeside Books
(Benton Harbor, MI, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Brand New! Not Overstocks or Low Quality Book Club Editions! Direct From the Publisher! We're not a giant, faceless warehouse organization! We're a small town bookstore that loves books and loves it's customers! Buy from Lakeside Books!. Seller Inventory # OTF-Y-9780345470614

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 7.70
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 3.16
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Tyler, Anne
Published by Vintage (2004)
ISBN 10: 0345470613 ISBN 13: 9780345470614
New Soft Cover Quantity: 10
Seller:
booksXpress
(Bayonne, NJ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9780345470614

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 11
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Tyler, Anne
Published by Vintage 10/26/2004 (2004)
ISBN 10: 0345470613 ISBN 13: 9780345470614
New Paperback or Softback Quantity: 5
Seller:
BargainBookStores
(Grand Rapids, MI, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback or Softback. Condition: New. The Amateur Marriage 0.55. Book. Seller Inventory # BBS-9780345470614

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 11.55
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

TYLER, ANNE
Published by Penguin Random House (2004)
ISBN 10: 0345470613 ISBN 13: 9780345470614
New Softcover Quantity: > 20
Seller:
INDOO
(Avenel, NJ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Brand New. Seller Inventory # 0345470613

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 8.76
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 3.16
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Tyler, Anne
ISBN 10: 0345470613 ISBN 13: 9780345470614
New Paperback Quantity: > 20
Seller:
Save With Sam
(North Miami, FL, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Brand New!. Seller Inventory # 0345470613

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 13.59
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Tyler, Anne
ISBN 10: 0345470613 ISBN 13: 9780345470614
New Softcover Quantity: > 20
Seller:
Lucky's Textbooks
(Dallas, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # ABLIING23Feb2215580130464

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 10.66
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 3.16
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Anne Tyler
ISBN 10: 0345470613 ISBN 13: 9780345470614
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
Grand Eagle Retail
(Wilmington, DE, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the beloved Pulitzer Prizewinning authora rich and compelling novel about a mismatched marriage and its consequences, spanning three generations They seemed like the perfect coupleyoung, good-looking, made for each other. The moment Pauline, a stranger to the Polish Eastern Avenue neighborhood of Baltimore (though she lived only twenty minutes away), walked into his mothers grocery store, Michael was smitten. And in the heat of World War II fervor, they are propelled into a hasty wedding. But they never should have married. Pauline, impulsive, impractical, tumbles hit-or-miss through life; Michael, plodding, cautious, judgmental, proceeds deliberately. While other young marrieds, equally ignorant at the start, seemed to grow more seasoned, Pauline and Michael remain amateurs. In time their foolish quarrels take their toll. Even when they find themselves, almost thirty years later, loving, instant parents to a little grandson named Pagan, whom they rescue from Haight-Ashbury, they still cannot bridge their deep-rooted differences. Flighty Pauline clings to the notion that the rifts can always be patched. To the unyielding Michael, they become unbearable. From the sound of the cash register in the old grocery to the counterculture jargon of the sixties, from the miniskirts to the multilayered apparel of later years, Anne Tyler captures the evocative nuances of everyday life during these decades with such telling precision that every page brings smiles of recognition. Throughout, as each of the competing voices bears witness, we are drawn ever more fully into the complex entanglements of family life in this wise, embracing, and deeply perceptive novel. From the inimitable Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Breathing Lessons" comes a rich and compelling novel--a "New York Times" bestseller--about a mismatched marriage, and its consequences spanning three generations. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780345470614

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 15.04
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Tyler, Anne
ISBN 10: 0345470613 ISBN 13: 9780345470614
New Softcover Quantity: > 20
Seller:
California Books
(Miami, FL, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # I-9780345470614

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 16.33
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

There are more copies of this book

View all search results for this book