Noah’s Compass by Anne Tyler (2009)

Noah’s Compass is Anne Tyler’s eighteenth novel, and its elements will be comfortably familiar to her long-time readers. Couples in her work tend to divide into controlled, emotionally remote, quiet types (almost always the man) and messy, somewhat hapless, warm-hearted ones (almost always the woman). A few examples: Michael and Pauline in The Amateur Marriage; Macon and Muriel in The Accidental Tourist; and Ira and Maggie in Breathing Lessons. Readers can also expect martyr mothers, estranged children, and of course Baltimore. But I don’t care if it’s all familiar and safe and fits me like an old sweater. Old comfortable sweaters are great.

Liam Pennywell, 61, has just retired from teaching fifth grade, and on his first night in a new apartment a burglar hits him on the head, giving him a concussion. The move and the concussion also bring his family—daughters, sister, ex-wife—more directly into his life.

At the same time, Liam is deeply troubled by his inability to remember the event. When he meets the much younger Eunice, who works as a “rememberer” for a forgetful and wealthy old man, he becomes intrigued. The two hit it off, and Liam begins to confront all sorts of things he’s forgotten.

Sometimes the pieces here fit too comfortably into place, but the romance’s outcome surprised me. I thought it was a brave choice for Tyler and the more I think about it, the righter it seems. I like Tyler’s increasing meditations on getting older and the way it narrows your choices. So often I read things that chimed perfectly with stuff I’ve been musing about. And I loved this; Liam, the former philosophy student, is talking to his daughter:

[H]e said, “Epictetus says that everything has two handles, one by which it can be borne and one by which it cannot. If your brother sins against you, he says, don’t take hold of it by the wrong he did you but by the fact that he’s his brother. That’s how it can be borne.”

I’m going to remember that.

It’s certainly not an earth-shaking novel, but it’s Anne Tyler and that tells you just about everything.