French Braid

Oh, Anne Tyler, you get people like no other writer. You see their vulnerabilities. You see their (sometimes hidden) strengths despite their (blatant) weaknesses. And you share these with us, tenderly.

The Garrett family is the central cast in this book. Mom and dad and their kids and their kids. A story that goes through several generations. It starts with a scene between one of the grandkids of the story with her boyfriend. She sees a man she thinks might be her cousin, and her boyfriend is struck by this, finding it odd that she doesn't even recognize her own cousin. And the story draws on this, the connections between family members, their disconnections, their own varying perceptions of their relationships. It's completely fascinating.

Oh, and what does the title have to do with the plot? It was almost at the end before David was having a conversation with his wife about French braids, how his daughter wore them and when she undid the braids, her hair would still be in ripples for hours and hours afterward. “That's how families work, too. You think you're free of them, but you're never really free; the ripples are crimped in forever.” Lovely.