Micah Mortimer would thrive in a quarantine world. With a routine “etched in stone”, he keeps his basement flat scrupulously clean (scrubbing a different room each day), leaves the house at the same time every day for a run, and his family and girlfriend are kept at a socially distanced arm’s length.
But in the non-Covid world of Anne Tyler’s new novel, Micah’s pandemic-appropriate lifestyle renders him a disappointment.
Just as Tyler revisits her perennial setting of Baltimore in her 22nd novel, there are imprints of past characters in our male, fortysomething protagonist.Micah’s routine of computer-fixing and house-cleaning is thrown off with the arrival of Brink, the son of his first girlfriend Lorna. Lorna has never confirmed who Brink’s father is, leading him to believe for some pretty unflattering reasons that it must be Micah.
There’s a particularly wonderful scene halfway through the novel when Micah goes for a family lunch, a chaos of noise and people flitting from room to room as food is served over shoulders and conversations shoot up like “geysers”. It’s a showcase of Tyler’s genius in finding humour and humanity in the ordinary.
Her latest novel might not be heavy on plot twists, and the conclusion feels a touch rushed, but is still packed with wit and humanity — a good read to add to your lockdown list, if only for house-cleaning tips.
Redhead at the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler (Chatto, £14.99), buy it here.
