A Patchwork Planet
by Anne Tyler
List Price: $12.95
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0449003981
Publisher: Fawcett
Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis in 1941 but grew up in Raleigh, North
Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University, and went on
to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University. Her eleventh
novel, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988.
She is also the author of If Morning Ever Comes, The Tin Can
Tree, A Slipping-Down Life, The Clock Winder, Celestial
Navigation, Searching for Caleb, Earthly Possessions,
Morgan's Passing, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The
Accidental Tourist, Saint Maybe, and Ladder of Years.
Tyler is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives
in Baltimore.
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Q: Your protagonist in this
novel, Barnaby Gaitlin, has been described as an average, ordinary man.
Is this how you would describe him?
AT: I think Barnaby
is average and ordinary only to the extent that most people are average
and ordinary--that is, not very, if you look carefully enough.
Q: Barnaby is, among other
things, a man struggling to cast off the weight of his past. How successful
is he, and indeed any of us, in doing so?
AT: I do believe that
Barnaby is at least largely successful in getting out from under the weight
of his past--that's where the plot derives its movement.
Q: At the close of this
novel, we are left wondering just exactly who is Barnaby's angel. How
would you answer this question?
AT: Barnaby has not
just one but many angels--the network of people he lives among who see
him for the good man he is and wish him well and do what they can to ease
his life.
Q: You delightfully skewer
class pretensions in this novel, most notably in the form of Barnaby's
mother, Margot, and explore the cost and meaning of class mobility in
America. Why is this such a central theme in your work?
AT: I've always enjoyed
studying the small clues that indicate a particular class level. And I
am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America,
even though it's not supposed to be.
Q: You have been credited
by reviewer James Bowman in the Wall Street Journal with creating fictional
businesses with great potential, Rent-a-Back being the most recent and
best example. What was the inspiration for Rent-a-Back?
AT: Rent-a-Back's inspiration
was pure wishful thinking. I would love to have such a service available
to me.
Q: Many reviewers have
commented upon your powerful, realistic, and humane portrayal of elderly
characters in this novel as well as the relative lack of sustained exploration
of old age in contemporary American fiction. Do you agree with this assessment
of the state of the field?
AT: There are a number
of good novels about old people--I don't see a lack.
Q: Why did you choose to
create such a wide array of elderly characters and make the often painful
process of aging a central focus of this novel?
AT: Time, in general,
has always been a central obsession of mine--what it does to people, how
it can constitute a plot all on its own. So naturally, I am interested
in old age.
Q: If you had to choose
one of the family units in this novel as your own, which would you choose
and why?
AT: For my own family,
I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various
characters unrelated by blood.
Q: Barnaby is a character
who lives very much in his own head. Was it difficult to bring this loner
to such vivid life on the page?
AT: I had trouble at
first getting Barnaby to "open up" to me--he was as thorny and difficult
with me as he was with his family, and we had a sort of sparring, tussling
relationship until I grew more familiar with him.
Q: Which character(s) presented
the greatest challenge to you as a writer?
AT: Sophia was a challenge,
because I had less sympathy with her than with the other characters, and
therefore I had more trouble presenting her fairly.
Q: How did you come to
choose writing as your life's work, and what sustains you in this often
solitary vocation?
AT: I didn't really
choose to write; I more or less fell into it. It's true that it's a solitary
occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group
of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them.
Q: How does the writing
process work for you? Has it changed over the years?
AT: I never think about
the actual process of writing. I suppose I have a superstition about examining
it too closely.
Q: What advice would you
give struggling writers trying to get published?
AT: I would advise
any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will
ever read them--without a thought about publication--and only in the last
draft to consider how the work will look from the outside.
Q: How do your own experiences
impact (or not) upon your work in terms of subject matter and themes and
so forth?
AT: None of my own
experiences ever finds its way into my work. However, the stages of my
life--motherhood, middle age, etc.--often influence my subject matter.
Q: What themes do you find
yourself consistently addressing in your work?
AT: I don't think of
my work in terms of themes. I'm just trying to tell a story.
Q: Because you are an author
with a substantial body of work, reviewers and readers alike cannot resist
choosing their favorite book. Do you have a favorite among your own works?
AT: My favorite of
my books is Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, becomes it comes closest
to the concept I had when I started writing it.
Q: As a writer who is frequently
cited as an important influence on your peers, what writers and/or works
have most influenced you?
AT: A major influence
on my writing was reading Eudora Welty's short stories at age fourteen.
It wasn't till then that I realized that the kind of people I saw all
around me could be fit subjects for literature.
Q: What books would you
recommend reading groups add to their lists?
AT: Books that cause
fiercely passionate arguments, pro and con, seem to me the best candidates
for reading groups. For instance, I would recommend Christina Stead's
The Man Who Loved Children. No one is ever neutral about that book.
Q: What would you most
like your readers to get out of this novel?
AT: My fondest hope
for any of my novels is that readers will feel, after finishing it, that
for awhile they have actually stepped inside another person's life and
come to feel related to that person.
Q: What is next for you?
Are you working on a new project?
AT: I am in the very
beginning stages of a novel whose central character is sixty-five years
old.
Excerpted from A Patchwork Planet © Copyright 2008 by Anne Tyler. Reprinted with permission by Fawcett. All rights reserved.
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