At the time of the publication of her third novel, A Slipping-Down Life (1970), contemporary American novelist Anne Tyler had yet to set her novels in what became her trademark location: Baltimore, Maryland USA. A Slipping-Down Life, like its predecessors If Morning Ever Comes (1964) and The Tin Can Tree (1966), takes place in fictionalized cities in North Carolina and presents an intimate, sympathetic look at a family’s quirks and dysfunctions – themes that Tyler would revisit frequently in future works.
In A Slipping-Down Life the focus of the family foibles is 17-year-old Evie Decker, first shown to readers as “a plump drab girl in a brown sweater that was running to balls at the elbows” (1). Motherless and living with a somewhat distracted father who teaches math at the high school she attends, Evie...Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.
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Citation: Donohue, Cecilia. "A Slipping Down Life". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 March 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6979, accessed 07 December 2025.]
