Anne Tyler

Among the multiplicity of women novelists who attained well-deserved places in the literary canon and the literature classroom over the closing decades of the twentieth century, Anne Tyler stands out. One distinguishing trait is her prodigious rate of productivity; between 1964 and 2001 she published 16 novels, nine of which were released in the 1980s and 1990s. Also, while maintaining the Southern literary tradition in her choice of Southern cities as backdrops and in her emphasis on home and family relationships, she differentiates herself from such predecessors as William Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren and Katherine Anne Porter in her admitted lack of a “world view”.

Often inspired by overheard conversational snippet