“French Braid” is filled with piercing observation. It is lines like that one - seemingly tossed off by the omniscient narrator, a great skill of Tyler’s - that bring heft to this largely plotless book. “Oh, the lengths this family would go to so as not to spoil the picture of how things were supposed to be!” Tyler writes. And not even a simple three-strand braid more like a complicated French braid, one that takes in more and more strands as it progresses.īehaviors and attitudes from one generation are braided into the next, and so the Garrett children and grandchildren absorb their parents’ need for avoidance. The surface remains smooth, the marriage endures.įamilies, as Tyler has shown so brilliantly over her long career - she is 80 now - are private, convoluted things, twisted and knotted together over generations like a braid. Life is easier with no confrontation, no arguing. She never discusses any of this with her husband. Gradually, Mercy begins spending occasional nights at her studio until eventually she is there full time. To look in her bureau drawers … you would never suppose anything was missing.” She plans the move carefully, avoiding confrontation.
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