The World's Greatest Living Author

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	• Saint Maybe Anne Tyler Ballantine Books, 1996 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 62 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Second chances

Other than the social benefits of belonging to a church and the solace of the service, I have never understood why people need religion. But this novel gave new insight. As flawed as the Church of the Second Chance is, it provides what Ian, the main character of this story needs: practical help and morale support.

When Ian foregoes his college education and lets his friends and girlfriend drift away so that he can take care of children abandoned by his brother's suicide and their mother's overdose, it is what he knows is right and what the church tells him is right. He chooses to follow his conscience, knowing he will be eaten away morally if he walks away. He sacrifices his own development in many ways and doesn't have a life of his own into middle age. During the years the children are growing up, his personality almost disappears.

The reader cringes when he makes his choice and supports his parents' advice: finish school, this isn't your problem. Two of the children aren't even blood related, and the youngest is of dubious paternity. But there's no dissuading Ian, and as he struggles to become a parent over night, the reader begins to wish she could lend a hand with all of that laundry. His father is next to useless. His mother, crippled with arthritis, barely functions, but passes on her unrealistic optimism. The Second Chance day care/summer camp is recognized as pathetic by the children, but it's laudable for providing a lifeline.

Ultimately, it's gratifying that Ian doesn't choose the "Every Man for Himself" philosophy so prevalent in our time. His youth is stolen from him. The three children's views of Ian are well drawn and colored by their ability to remember their parents and the events before Ian stepped in. Daphne, the youngest, is Ian's child from the start, as much as if he had fathered her.

Without revealing the ending, let's say that Ian gets what he deserves, although he's almost unable to recognize it.

Bottom line: you can't go wrong with Anne Tyler.

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Very good, food for thought

In "Saint Maybe" Anne Tyler focuses again on her favorite subject, people - a seemingly average family, the Bedloes.

Bee and Doug Bedloe live with their three children in a small town, on Waverly street, where everyone has their place - there are the newlyweds, the foreigners, the old lady... The Bedloes are the Happy Family. The ideal family. Average, so that they do not make others jealous of their achievements, but no scandalous behavior: the parents are happily married, the daughter, Claudia, is also happily married off and a good mother, the older son, Danny, works at the post office, and the youngest, Ian, is in high school. Everything is in balance, everything is just so. Until Danny suddenly decides to marry Lucy Dean, a perky divorcee with two children, who came out of nowhere and nobody knew anything about her. The speculations rise, and culminate in the birth of the baby, Daphne, just 7 months after Lucy's and Danny's wedding. Ian, who is the central character in the novel, decides to share his suspicions with Danny, who dies a moment after hearing the news, starting the chain of irreversible events which forever change Ian's and the whole family's life.

Danny's death and Lucy's sleeping pills overdose shortly after make Ian feel terribly guilty. This guilt and its consequences are really what "Saint Maybe" is about. The events I described above, leading to the tragedy, are only the beginning (that is why I do not consider the description a spoiler). The novel is, in this respect, anti-climactic - everything happens at the beginning and the most dramatic event is only a starting point. The real subject is the analysis of guilt, atonement and despair, and a profound change in Ian Bedloe's life after his brother's death. Ian feels burdened with responsibility and decides to take up the upbringing of Lucy's children - Tommy, Agatha and Daphne. He feels weak and at a loss, but perseveres despite his doubts and difficulties. His path is very much influenced by the Church of the Second Chance, a small congregation of slightly peculiar views...

"Saint Maybe" is not a novel with a rich plot or surprising turns of events and no straightforward answers are given to the obvious questions, which may pop into the reader's head as suggested at the beginning (Was Lucy really cheating? Is Daphne Danny's daughter?), so do not look for them. Instead, this novel is a great study of painful, lifelong guilt and coming to terms with it. The questions answered are more universal. The characters are stereotypical, they are supposed to be so (that's why I am surprised to see the criticism of "foreigners" in some other reviews - these are not real people; these are foreigners how the neighbors from their small town, for example Doug Bedloe, see them). Only towards the end, marked by experience, they finally come to life.

Anne Tyler wrote a very good book, solid and lifelike, tackling a real problem and managing to get to its core with humor, sadness, hope and love.

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Interestingly Common People

Anne Tyler does a great job of writing about somewhat ordinary people and making them very interesting. Really she just does a great job of showing how complicated everyone is, even the people that appear boring at first glance.

Danny works at a post office and Lucy walks in and contemplates whether to send a package parcel post or priority mail. And because of her choice Danny is in love. And decides to marry her.

Lucy is a mystery. She has a past but we aren't sure what it is. She comes as a package deal, with two children.

Ian, Danny's brother, suspects Lucy of cheating on Danny and when he can no longer bear it, tells him.

Danny then commits suicide and Ian is left with the burden of guilt.

It is an excellent story of how Ian tries to rid himself of guilt; how he tries to redeem himself.

A lot of the story centers around Ian's involvement in a church, Church of the Second Chance. It is a very insightful account of the modern church and the every-man churchgoer.

The book is not fast paced; don't read it for that, but it is very thought provoking and for that I liked it a lot.

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Personal atonement

Anne Tyler captures the essence of atonement as Ian Bedloe realizes his error for making a false accusation very early in his life. He spends the rest of his life atoning for this error. The fascination is that no one else seems to blame or even believe Ian is at fault. How often does this occur in our own lives when we take on the guilt of something we know we have done but others fail or refuse to recognize our fault. Ian Bedloe does the "right" thing and we are left wondering just why he makes this difficult sacrifice all in the name of reconcilliation. We only hope we would be as noble and charitable. Once again the novel informs us of who we are and how our culture treats us; we are not alone and we need such reminders of what life is all about. Anne Tyler kindly reminds us.

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The World's Greatest Living Author

I leaped from her ninth book straight into this, her twelfth. She's so masterful it's downright scary, folks. The sense of awe that great authors give me was one thing that drove me to write. But if I'd read Anne Tyler's best novels, such as this one, long ago, it might have scared me right back to washing dishes and bussing tables.

I'm writing this review on a laptop in Malaysia and I know I have about 6 more of her novels back home, unread and waiting. That's something to be very happy about.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

9 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list!

"A novel that attests once again to Ms. Tyler's enormous gifts as a writer."
--THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Captivating . . . . Compelling . . . . There is a kind of magic at work in this novel."
--THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD

In 1965, the happy Bedloe family is living an ideal, apple-pie existence in Baltimore. Then, in the blink of an eye, a single tragic event occurs that will transform their lives forever--particularly that of seventeen-year-old Ian Bedloe, the youngest son, who blames himself for the sudden "accidental" death of his older brother.

Depressed and depleted, Ian is almost crushed under the weight of an unbearable, secret guilt. Then one crisp January evening, he catches sight of a window with glowing yellow neon, the CHURCH OF THE SECOND CHANCE. He enters and soon discovers that forgiveness must be earned, through a bit of sacrifice and a lot of love...

A New York Times Notable Book

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