Anne Tyler, Redhead by the Side of the Road

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 Apr 2020

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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As was the case with her last novel,

Clock Dance

(2018), Anne Tyler teases her readers with an intriguing title for her twenty-third full-length work of fiction published in April 2020,

Redhead by the Side of the Road.

The carrot top in question here is not an individual seeking attention or assistance, nor is it the “North American diving duck with a reddish-brown head, related to and resembling the pochard” (

Oxford Dictionaries

). Micah Mortimer, Tyler’s 40-something protagonist, is the sole owner of the impression, while driving down a sloped road, that “a certain fire hydrant, faded to the pinkish color of a aged clay flowerpot, was a child or a very short grown-up [. . .] Why! he always thought to himself. What was that little redhead doing by the side of the road? (26).”…

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1369 words

Citation: Donohue, Cecilia. "Redhead by the Side of the Road". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 December 2020 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=39460, accessed 26 April 2024.]

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