The Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler

...generally restore my faith in the goodness of humankind.

My wife, bless her cotton socks, knew just the book.. And so with much expectation (and perhaps a little trepidation) I began 'The Accidental Tourist'. I mean, with a title like that it's gotta be fairly light hearted right?

On page one I'm introduced to our central protagonist, Macon Leary. Macon is a reclusive, insular, anally retentive, emotionally inept, socially ...
...for the businessman who wants to feel as though he's never left home. "Oh great" I'm already thinking, "this is gonna be a whole load of fun".

On page four I discover that Macon's wife Sarah wants a divorce. I can't say I blame her at this stage, but things are not boding well for my 'enchanting escapism from the harsh realities of life'. It can only get better right?

So you'd think. So I read on ... more

Having experienced something of a bad run with good books lately (I'd just read 4 extremely good but very depressing books in a row) I decided that I was in need of a little lighthearted literary 'therapy'. What I wanted was a book that would entice, enchant and entertain me - absorb me with its characters, endue me with wonderment and generally restore my faith in the goodness of humankind.

My wife, bless her cotton socks, knew just the book.. And so with much expectation (and perhaps a little trepidation) I began 'The Accidental Tourist'. I mean, with a title like that it's gotta be fairly light hearted right?

On page one I'm introduced to our central protagonist, Macon Leary. Macon is a reclusive, insular, anally retentive, emotionally inept, socially incompetent, compulsive worrier who hates traveling and writes travel guides for the businessman who wants to feel as though he's never left home. "Oh great" I'm already thinking, "this is gonna be a whole load of fun".

On page four I discover that Macon's wife Sarah wants a divorce. I can't say I blame her at this stage, but things are not boding well for my 'enchanting escapism from the harsh realities of life'. It can only get better right?

So you'd think. So I read on with a good deal more trepidation until I reach the clincher. Sarah and Macon's 12 year old son Ethan was killed a year ago - shot in the head in cold blood, no less. A senseless killing in a botched burger bar hold up. To tell you the truth I almost laughed. Not at the movingly depressing event, but rather at the sheer relentlessness with which my literary woes pursued me. And so a sighed (to let my wife know I was *not* having fun) and resigned myself to another tragic yet moving novel which would leave my emotions wrangled and my head tangled.

And I suppose through general reluctance to engage in the story with my normal level of gusto, I found myself identifying with Macon Leary a little sooner than many other readers do. You see he's not a particularly easy person to identify with. After his wife Sarah leaves him with the house Macon feels himself sinking into a mire of meaningless routine and eventually he begins to fall slowly inwards. Macon's main problem appears to be his general unwillingness to engage with the messy process called life and so instead he entombs himself in a world of petty routine, dogged familiarity and the insular comforts of 'home' wherever he happens to be. He 'coped' with his son's tragic, sudden death the same way he deals with all life's unfortunate anomalies, by closing it off in seal-tight emotional Tupperware - safe and contained, manageable in it's enforced smallness. If he was to let it out… if he was to let himself 'feel' something, once, fully, totally - then his world might well fall apart and every little self-maintaining system might come crashing down around him. A prospect too fearful to even consider. And so he chooses to stay cocooned against the world at large, living in a vacuous shell of habitual safeguarding.

Enter single mother and part time dog trainer Muriel. Brassy, disorganized, loud, excessive, wild, vibrant, unpredictable and sincere, Muriel is the personified antithesis of Macon. So dissimilar are these two characters that you could say that their meeting was inevitable, if opposites truly do attract via some great universal magnetic force then Macon stood no chance. But his reaction to this vivacious, impulsive woman is, rather understandably, one of abject horror, fear, curiosity and a strange sensation that he can't quite put his finger on, but long ago would have called 'attraction'. Rather like a startled rabbit on the freeway, caught between the enchanting headlights of an oncoming truck, Macon's efforts to 'run for cover' at the approach of this potentially destructive unknown force are somewhat hampered by his inexplicable desire to find out what would happen if he stayed in the middle of the road. And so, we find, are we.

The context for this curious relationship is Macon's disobedient dog Edward. Actually Edward used to belong to his son Ethan - which perhaps explains Macon's unusual tolerance for his bad behavior and the general disruption he causes wherever he goes, attacking friends and relatives alike. During a visit to the dog kennel Muriel takes a liking to Macon and by the time he leaves she has practically invited herself into his life with the firm intention of 'shaking things up a little'.

And not a moment too soon, not long after his seperation from Sarah Macon ends up moving back in with his spinster sister and two divorced brothers who all live in a bizarre domestic arrangement which looks like a grown up, dysfunctional version of the Waltons. This glimpse into Macon's family history goes some way to explaining his present day social condition and also gives us a terrifying foretaste of what Macon looks set to become (in his brothers) if something drastic doesn't happen soon. Of course, Muriel is more than happy to become the 'drastic measure' Macon needs to rattle him out of his indifferent stupor and inject his life with some meaning and purpose again. But old habits die hard, and old affections linger with resolute determination - the longer a fire burns the hotter the embers glow.

Macon still loves and, desperately misses his wife, although it soon becomes clear to the reader that since the death of their son their total inability to work through their grief together has forced an almost irreconcilable void to open between them. Almost irreconcilable. Sarah still loves (and needs) Macon in her own way and keeps him at just the right distance to stop him forgetting her, but also to stop him from feeling secure in her love. As Muriel crashes into this delicate yet restrictive balance Macon is temporarily flung out of his own private orbit and catapulted into a world of risk, passion and hope as he looses his grip on the stifling routines which have held him an emotional hostage for so long. Only once Macon has had a taste of 'real life' and is beginning to come to the slow realization that he might actually enjoy it, does Sarah reappear and begin to make advances back into his life, tempting him back into his shell where he's safe and protected. Should he go back to what he knows, is there really anything wrong with wanting security and routine? Or should he embrace the wild ride and uncomfortable newness of risk with the woman who scares and fascinates him in equal measure? And is he actually going to have any say in the matter at all?

It's in these tensions that Anne Tyler so brilliantly weaves the dramatic thrust of the book between the mundane detail and stifling routines of Macon's life. Tyler's craft is in mediating the subtle relationship between these two elements, neither of which could successfully exist in isolation. Without the intensely personal detail of the character's private lives the plot would not be sufficiently grounded to hold our attention, and yet without the uncomfortable tensions and unpredictable outcomes of the plot we would get lost in the minutia of personal detail and loose interest in the fate of the characters. It's a delicate balance, and there are times when it threatens to topple one way or the other, but Tyler is skilled enough to view the development of the story from the reader's perspective and always redresses the balance before our curiosity wanes.

By investing so heavily in the characters Tyler throws her lot in with Macon, if you're not with him, you won't like the book. But what I genuinely respect about this author is the fact that instead of making Macon an essentially likeable, if a little quirky, character and soliciting our affections through standard sentimental mechanisms, Tyler takes a much more difficult, and therefore risky approach. She paints a vivid yet often confused and messy picture of a man in turmoil with himself and in conflict with the world. He's complex, frustrating, self pitying, inconsistent and generally not immediately endearing in any way shape or form. He's not just a character with his fair share of human flaws, at worst he's an irritating, reclusive oddball with very few redeeming features or likeable qualities at all. A foolhardy move on Tyler's part, were it not for the introduction of Muriel. Herself a complex and far from perfect character, Muriel provides a new and vital perspective on Macon's life which helps to bring the reader on side in the nick of time. Muriel sees something in Macon that everyone else has missed, including Macon himself. And we're not quite sure if we're seeing what she's seeing, or if what she's seeing is true, but we're fascinated by the process and drawn in to the development of this unlikely yet oddly compelling relationship.

By the end of the book I found myself feeling complexly yet inexplicably entangled with the characters lives (considering my initial reluctance) and count it as a credit to Tyler's writing ability that this process occurred so subtly that I was never conscious of my transition from reluctant reader to engaged participant. Tyler draws rather than pulls us in, there's no hustling, no harassing the reader with prescriptive incentives to engage with the story, she just draws us in through the passionate description of her characters and the deep, if occasionally unsettling, humanity she invests them with. Creating neither a lighthearted romance nor a heavy handed drama 'The Accidental Tourist' is a tour de force in which reality and fiction clash and blend all at once, giving us a book who's characters refuse to remain bound the pages and follow you round long after you've finished reading.

 

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