Anne Tyler, The Accidental Tourist

Cecilia Donohue (Independent Scholar - North America)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1985

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Recommended Reading

The Accidental Tourist

(1985), Anne Tyler’s tenth novel, was the second in a triumvirate of consecutively published works that cemented the author’s reputation as an important contemporary American writer. Sandwiched between her widely-praised and often-taught

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

(1982) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning

Breathing Lessons

(1988),

The Accidental Tourist

affords readers an opportunity to experience Tyler’s straightforward yet intimate storytelling style, with her signature focus on residents of Baltimore, Maryland USA, and how unexpected events can catapult an individual into full-blown life reassessment, repair, and renewal.

For Macon Leary, The Accidental Tourist’s protagonist, the initial trauma occurs prior to the start of the novel. He and his wife

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.

1344 words

Citation: Donohue, Cecilia. "The Accidental Tourist". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 December 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14602, accessed 18 April 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article

Save this article