Clock Dance

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Amenable 61-year-old Willa Drake – “she was the only woman she knew whose prime objective was to be taken for granted” – has moved to Arizona with her second husband, humourless, golf-playing Peter. Her beloved (and equally amenable) father is dead; she doesn’t see much of her adult sons. In the shabby-respectable neighborhood where her son’s ex lives, she immediately finds a surprising sense of community. There’s her non-granddaughter most importantly, a precise, pensive, tender girl, but also a modest doctor, a shy teenager, a dog named Airplane. Willa’s real family – husband, sons – are cavalier to the point of cruelty with her; these new people need her, and set about rescuing her, in typical Tylerian fashion, from her own manners. Later we visit a familiar theme that women have grappled with for centuries: pleasing others - giving up dreams ( if even clear of them in the first place), trying to take care of everyone else’s needs, but little thought to one’s own. A delightful novel of one woman's transformative journey, from the best-selling and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer.

Clock Dance by Anne Tyler: Summary and reviews - BookBrowse Clock Dance by Anne Tyler: Summary and reviews - BookBrowse

This was close to classic Anne Tyler for me. She has such a feel for family dynamics, their foibles and shortcomings, their strengths and disappointments. I liked Willa, we all know someone like her. A good person, mild-mannered, apt to be taken for granted. Here, she is struggling for some semblance of a meaningful life beyond that for which she has settled. She will be presented with a most unlikely way to find it.

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I know women like Willa, people who, without realizing it, do everything for the males around them, only to end up unappreciated. So when she discovers a new family – one in which she’s warmly welcomed – why wouldn’t she want to spend time with them? Where families fail, friends and neighbours can fill the void. Willa’s encounters with Cheryl and Denise, and their sociable, oddball neighbours, are related in beadily observed, often hilarious accounts. Willa bonds with plump, precocious Cheryl, one of Tyler’s most appealing creations. Friends offer gifts and advice; the secret of Denise’s shooting is revealed; doctor Ben dispenses antibiotics and life-coaching. Some of this could have been cheesy, but in Tyler’s capable hands it is funny and interesting. It is Ben who coaxes Willa towards a more nuanced perspective on her parents’ marriage – ‘My wife used to say that her idea of hell would be marrying Gandhi,’ he muses – and Willa’s exuberant, gifted mother, maddened by saintliness, slips into focus. The Canadian novelist Carol Shields described the ‘true’ subject of serious fiction as being not ‘ongoing wars or political issues, but the search of an individual for his or her true home’. Tyler’s novel presents a moving portrait of a woman, late in life, discovering an environment in which she can flourish. The question is whether Willa will seize the opportunity offered or return to docile wifehood. Tyler keeps the reader in suspense until the final paragraphs. For People Who Devour Books Of the eight Tyler novels I’ve read so far, here’s how I’d rank them (from best to least good). You’ll see that this latest one falls somewhere in the middle.

Clock (British group) - Wikipedia Clock (British group) - Wikipedia

Willa grew up with a moody mom and a docile dad. She helped raise her younger sister, Elaine, when her mom periodically stepped out of the house without warning. Willa is a good child, a responsible rule follower, and a peacemaker. She eventually marries her college boyfriend and has two sons, then becomes a widow when the boys are teenagers. Tyler has such an ear for dialogue. She can perfectly capture conversations between parent and child (no matter what the relationship is between them), husband and wife, siblings (close or distant), and friends. It's one of the hallmarks of her books—she is an author who truly "gets" people, and realizes characters don't have to stop bullets with their hands or navigate great personal strife to anchor a book. That is one reason her talent has endured through the years. More predictable and less profound than her most recent full-scale work (the magical A Spool of Blue Thread, 2015), but Tyler’s characteristic warmth and affection for her characters are as engaging as ever.Anne Tyler knows her characters, she is a genius at dialogue. Her situations are real, nothing that stretches the imagination, and we can see ourselves in every paragraph. That's what I love about her novels, they can be counted on when you need a slice of life to bring you down to earth. Despite her husband’s displeasure, Willa decides to fly across the country to Baltimore and help out. Some readers struggle with the 'why' but I understood Willa’s motives. She is getting older, her two sons are distant, her husband is an ass, she’s bored, and is attracted to the need to be needed. To have an adventure. Then, one day, Willa receives a startling phone call from a stranger. Without fully understanding why, she flies across the country to Baltimore to look after a young woman she's never met, her nine-year-old daughter, and their dog, Airplane. As a relatively young widow in the late 1990s, she must suddenly try and figure out what is next for her life, considering her husband and children have been the ones to chart her course for as long as she can remember. And 20 years later, still seeking a purpose, she gets a completely unexpected phone call, and without warning, she finds herself heading across the country to take care of a young girl and her mother, two people she had never even met before.

Clock Dance (Tyler) - Discussion Questions - LitLovers Clock Dance (Tyler) - Discussion Questions - LitLovers

Top 100 peaks to December 2010: Ryan, Gavin (2011). Australia's Music Charts 1988–2010. Mt. Martha, VIC, Australia: Moonlight Publishing. Anne Tyler is the most dependably rewarding novelist now at work in our country.”— The Wall Street Journal I still don’t like the book cover - but I enjoyed the book....(the characters - the subtlety- and the insightful thoughts it ignites). And then a stranger calls from Baltimore to say that her neighbour, an ex-girlfriend of Willa’s eldest, has been shot in the leg and hospitalised and needs someone to care for her nine-year-old daughter. The neighbour, not unreasonably, assumes that Willa must be the grandmother of this child. Tenderly devastating . . . Affecting . . . A quiet but sharply feminist statement.” — Entertainment Weekly

Reader Reviews

Family is the way some of us understand the world. Not the self, not society – but the little malleable confederation that lies between the two. A TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR USA TODAY• ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: O Magazine, Christian Science Monitor, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Times (London) I often find myself reading this author’s books in fits and starts at the beginning, then rushing through their second halves in heedless absorption, and I’ve finally decided it’s because almost all of her stories begin in sorrow and end in hope. This story had plenty of it too. It’s not that I was feeling sad every minute, but my god, it killed me right from the start knowing a little girl had to be ‘responsible’ and ‘adult-like’ before she was developmentally prepared or age-appropriate.

Clock Dance - Wikipedia

Willa is living in Arizona when she hears that her son’s ex-girlfriend in Baltimore has been shot in the leg. Can Willa come and take care of the woman’s daughter? Nobody else is around. The answer should of course be "no," and of course Willa, full of indistinct yearning, says "yes." Although these are not spoilers in the truest sense, you might prefer to come across them as you read. Willa's mother, she of the iffy temperament, perversely prepares rabbit stew for Easter dinner. This was not random, you get the distinct impression she is wanting to get a rise out of someone with regard to the timing of the entree, and she succeeds. It seems odd that the coming-of-age novel should still largely be confined to that time of life when youth passes into adulthood, when, for so many of us, the really interesting periods of revelation and maturation occur in later decades. Willa Drake, the heroine of Anne Tyler’s 22nd novel, leaves it particularly late: she is 61 when she embarks on a rather whimsical mission that will change her life. We jump to the next 20 years and Willa is married to someone named Peter and he is not someone I would call a great spouse. He calls her "Little One", which is bizarre to call your wife. He also tells her what to do and she just kind of mouses away and goes with it. At this point Willa doesn't have much of a relationship with her sons, her sister and both of her parents have passed. She gets a call from one of her's son's ex girlfriends friends that Denise has been in an accident. Willa and Peter fly out to Baltimore to take care of her and this is when Willa realizes that strangers can turn into friends who can turn into family. When she marries and has children of her own, she vows to ensure they never feel the inconsistencies and wild swings of personality that she experienced herself as a child. Through marriage, motherhood, widowhood, and re-marriage, Willa submerges parts of herself into the waters of Peace at All Costs.The book asks the question, "What do you live for?" It also asks how people cope when a loved one dies, and what makes up a family. The answer will be different for each individual, and Willa was on her way to discovering the answers. This book started off really strong with an intense plot and several flashforwards that made the story compelling and alluring. In chapter one, we meet Willa and her sister who have once again been abandoned by their tempestuous mother. Their father doesn't really want to confide in them what has happened this time around, so it's up to Willa and her younger sister to continue living their lives while desperately missing their mother. No matter what, any one of Tyler's books is truly a gift. Her novels are truly a testament to her talent and her fascination with the flawed beings we humans are.