Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
Lee Bradley's review
Jul 08, 2024

I got a copy of this book from a local Little Free Library. What a find!

After reading about 100 pages I got into it and felt the author was good
enough to check her out further. I learned she has written some 20 books
(!). Breathing Lessons is her 12th novel. It won a Pulitzer Prize. She
was born in 1941 (making her one year older than me). This book came out
in 1988 so it's been around.

I absolutely loved this book. It's about Ira and Maggie Moran who live
in Baltimore. We find them travelling to Deer Lick, Pennsylvania at the
beginning of the book. They are going to the funeral of the husband of
Maggie's girlhood friend Serena.

There's lots of traveling in this book. It seems to take them forever
to get to where they are going. We learn Maggie is a terrible driver.
The car they are driving has dented fenders (Maggie can't quite remember
what happened and "repaired" the problem by pulling it away from the
wheel it was hitting).

As the book unfolds we meet their kids, Jesse, Daisy and Dorrie and
Ira's dad, Sam. Sam has a "weak heart," lives above his son's frame shop
and is totally dependent on Ira. Daisy's going to head off to college
soon and Dorrie is immature and still worships Elvis.

We also learn Jesse can't hold down a job, married a girl named Fiona who
has left him and who they learn on the radio will be getting married
again. (But read on.)

One of the funniest digressions is when they are enroute they find
themselves held up by a slow driver and to get rid of him Maggie calls
out telling him his left front wheel is loose. Many pages later and
laugh out loud dialog, Maggie and Mr. Otis are best of friends. The
totally made up left front wheel problem has become real in Otis's mind
and we're not sure they will *ever* get rid of him and get to where they
are going. Maggie's "weakness" is turning things that aren't quite true
into "realities," and causing the lives of others to go in directions
that may not end up well.

For instance, Jesse and Fiona get pregnant, Leroy, who is a girl (he
wanted a boy) is born, saved from an abortion Fiona wanted until Maggie
stepped in. Jessie tries to mend his shaky relationship with his wife by
promising to build a crib, reads Dr. Spock books etc. etc. After Ira and
Maggie finally get to Fiona's place to catch up the idea of a return
visit forms. We learn that Fiona is *not* going to remarry (the radio
story was completely misunderstood by Maggie).

Jesse and Fiona's "reunion" is a disaster. The book has only maybe 20
pages to go and I'm thinking how in hell is she going to wind this up?

I won't give away the ending. It's actually somewhat a guess on my part
of what the final pages are saying but I'm pretty sure I'm right.

Great book. I hope you try it. I'm giving it to my coworker as soon as
we resume our tutoring in September. She's a reader and we trade books
all the time.