After moving in April, I was unpacking boxes of alphabeticalised books (I am a bit too organised shall we say), and I noticed that Anne Tyler sat next to John Updike. This worried me somewhat, as I couldn’t imagine that they would get on. My mother is always astonished how much I like Updike as she sees him as a misogynist writer, so I wasn’t sure how Anne Tyler would feel about being next to him on the shelf. But the very next day I heard a piece on the radio saying exactly the opposite, pointing out, amongst other things, how Updike has praised Tyler’s writing. 

I’ve always argued back to my mother that Updike is not a misogynist, he’s just very good at writing about men who are. Tyler’s male characters are also completely convincing. Most importantlt, they are both quite simply, excellent at chronicling everyday American life. Their writing takes me right to the era they are describing and makes me feel like I live in one of the neighbourhoods where they are set. They both write in one sense quite quiet, ordinary books, even though extraordinary things often happen within them.

One of my all time favourite books of all time is In the Beauty of the Lilies by Updike. It is a fabulous book. It covers four generations of an American family and it completely captivated me. I imagine that chronicling everyday life so well is extremely hard to do. But both Updike and Tyler make it seem effortless.