Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups

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 2001

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Recommended Reading

Readers of Anne Tyler’s sixteenth novel,

Back When We Were Grownups

(2001), will encounter many of the plotline elements present in her previous works. These include: suburban Baltimore, Maryland, USA, as the setting; a traffic jam of unique, offbeat characters who say and do the unexpected; extended family celebrations that include non-related acquaintances and engender a sense of reconciliation; the theme of travel through time; and, most importantly, a fork in life’s road providing the opportunity for a second chance or major life transition for the central character.

Widowed for many years, 53-year-old Rebecca Holmes Davitch laments the fact that she has “turned into the wrong person” (3). This discovery comes just prior to the party she is hosting to celebrate the engagement

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Citation: Donohue, Cecilia. "Back When We Were Grownups". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 December 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14605, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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