Novel’s narrative mould is thick
Reviewed by Ron Charles.
Ais available as an ebook.
nne Tyler’s new novel Redhead by the Side of the Road is either wholly irrelevant or just what we need – or possibly both. Slight and slightly charming, it’s not much of a meal perhaps, but who could handle more now?
The milquetoast protagonist is Micah Mortimer, ‘‘a tall, bony man in his early 40s with not-so-good posture’’. He lives in a basement apartment in Baltimore.
Gilded with a patina of quirkiness, Micah is a self-employed computer fix-it guy. Tellingly, he calls himself the Tech Hermit. He repairs elderly folks’ PCs, sometimes by turning them off and turning them back on.
At the opening, Tyler says, ‘‘You have to wonder what goes through the mind of a man like Micah Mortimer,’’ but she doesn’t wonder very hard. ‘‘He keeps to himself,’’ she says. ‘‘His routine is etched in stone.’’
He may not have a pulse, but he does have a girlfriend. ‘‘She was matronly,’’ Tyler writes, ‘‘which Micah found kind of a turn-on.’’ That marks the erotic peak of this novel.
‘‘He and Cass had been together for three years or so, and they had reached the stage where things had more or less solidified.’’
Or so Micah assumes. In the first chapter, Cass fears she’s about to be evicted from her apartment. When Micah reacts with insufficient sympathy, she breaks up with him.
I have switched dry cleaners with more drama. Still, the minor disruptions to Micah’s orderly life are just beginning. A preppy young man named Brink shows up at the door.
Having found some old photos from his mother’s college years, Brink is convinced that Micah must be his real father. Alas, the calendar won’t support that.
From these small complications, Tyler spins a small story about a man perplexed by the tepid state of his life. There is nothing necessarily objectionable about a novel focused on ‘‘such a narrow and limited man’’, as Tyler calls Micah.
Writers as diverse as Sinclair Lewis and Anita Brookner have found profound comedy and pathos in the lives of apparently dull people. But in this case, the mould growing on Micah’s airless character seems to have spread to the narration itself.
These characters are a series of moderately eccentric poses presented without much wit or psychological insight.
Tightly compressed, Micah’s gentle quest for a better life would feel more buoyant – and this novel’s lovely final page wouldn’t feel so needlessly delayed.