The Amateur Marriage

The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler
Fiction /Literature

Pauline blows into Michael's Polish family grocery just after Pearl Harbor with a bloodied brow. Michael takes one look and falls deeply in love. Shortly after he goes to war but returns home with an injury probably caused by one of his unit's soldiers. What follows is marriage and three children. At first Michael and Pauline live over the shop with his mother. Once they save enough they move to the suburbs. They have a very normal and everyday kind of marriage.

Then their eldest daughter runs away from home and everything goes awry. Fights seem more intense and the lack of passion is missed.

Tyler takes the ordinary and breathes life into it. I did however at times find the story too ordinary and wished something different would happen.

First Line: "Anyone in the neighborhood could tell you how Michael and Pauline met."

Rating:

(3.5/5)