Anne Tyler’s novels are known for their happy endings.
Her eccentric characters typically achieve some sort of
redemption. Celestial Navigation breaks the mold.
We meet 38-year-old Jeremy Pauling after his doting mother’s death
in Baltimore, Tyler’s usual setting. Jeremy is a reclusive, shy
artist who lived with his mother in her rooming house. Today we’d
likely say he is on the autism spectrum. Refusing to move to
Richmond to live with his two sisters, he manages to muddle
through his days with some help from the boarders, who eventually
include Mary Tell and her preschool daughter. Mary has run away
from her husband.
Jeremy falls for Mary, who is unemployed and penniless and marries
him. The story jumps ahead to their surprisingly having a large
brood of children — six eventually. Jeremy gradually achieves some
recognition for his mosaic sculptures, but Mary can’t tolerate
life with him anymore and leaves with the kids.
If Tyler was trying to present a portrait of a troubled but
brilliant artist, she didn’t wholly succeed. Jeremy comes across
as so inept it’s hard to imagine that he can create anything. His
relationship with Mary, and her feelings for him, are hard to
understand.
If you’re reading Tyler for the first time, there are novels that
are more characteristic of her — and better.
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