• Complain

Anne Tyler - The Amateur Marriage

Here you can read online Anne Tyler - The Amateur Marriage full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2006, publisher: Ballantine Books, genre: Detective and thriller. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Anne Tyler The Amateur Marriage

The Amateur Marriage: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "The Amateur Marriage" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

From the inimitable Anne Tyler, a rich and compelling novel about a mismatched marriageand its consequences, spanning three generations.They seemed like the perfect coupleyoung, good-looking, made for each other. The moment Pauline, a stranger to the Polish Eastern Avenue neighborhood of Baltimore (though she lived only twenty minutes away), walked into his mothers grocery store, Michael was smitten. And in the heat of World War II fervor, they are propelled into a hasty wedding. But they never should have married.Pauline, impulsive, impractical, tumbles hit-or-miss through life; Michael, plodding, cautious, judgmental, proceeds deliberately. While other young marrieds, equally ignorant at the start, seemed to grow more seasoned, Pauline and Michael remain amateurs. In time their foolish quarrels take their toll. Even when they find themselves, almost thirty years later, loving, instant parents to a little grandson named Pagan, whom they rescue from Haight-Ashbury, they still cannot bridge their deep-rooted differences. Flighty Pauline clings to the notion that the rifts can always be patched. To the unyielding Michael, they become unbearable. From the sound of the cash register in the old grocery to the counterculture jargon of the sixties, from the miniskirts to the multilayered apparel of later years, Anne Tyler captures the evocative nuances of everyday life during these decades with such telling precision that every page brings smiles of recognition. Throughout, as each of the competing voices bears witness, we are drawn ever more fully into the complex entanglements of family life in this wise, embracing, and deeply perceptive novel.From the Hardcover edition.

Anne Tyler: author's other books


Who wrote The Amateur Marriage? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

The Amateur Marriage — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "The Amateur Marriage" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make
ALSO BY ANNE TYLER
If Morning Ever Comes
The Tin Can Tree
A Slipping-Down Life
The Clock Winder
Celestial Navigation
Searching for Caleb
Earthly Possessions
Morgans Passing
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
The Accidental Tourist
Breathing Lessons
Saint Maybe
Ladder of Years
A Patchwork Planet
Back When We Were Grownups
About the Author
Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis in 1941. She is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Breathing Lessons and other bestselling novels, including The Accidental Tourist, Ladder of Years, A Patchwork Planet and Back When We Were Grownups. In 1994 she was nominated by Roddy Doyle and Nick Hornby as the greatest novelist writing in English. She lives in Baltimore, where her novels are set.
Contents
THE AMATEURMARRIAGEAnne Tyler
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781407020631
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Published by Vintage 2004
8 10 9 7
Copyright Anne Tyler, 2004
Anne Tyler has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
First published in Great Britain in 2004 by
Chatto & Windus
First published in the United States of America in 2004 by
Alfred A. Knopf
Vintage
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
Random House Australia (Pty) Limited
20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney
New South Wales 2061, Australia
Random House New Zealand Limited
18 Poland Road, Glenfield,
Auckland 10, New Zealand
Random House (Pty) Limited
Endulini, 5A Jubilee Road, Parktown 2193,
South Africa
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
www.randomhouse.co.uk/vintage
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 09 946959 6
Papers used by Random House are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Bookmarque Ltd, Croydon, Surrey
Table of Contents
l. Common Knowledge
Anyone in the neighborhood could tell you how Michael and Pauline first met.
It happened on a Monday afternoon early in December of 1941. St. Cassian was its usual poky self that daya street of narrow East Baltimore row houses, carefully kept little homes intermingled with shops no bigger than small parlors. The Golka twins, identically kerchiefed, compared cake rouges through the window of Swedas Drugs. Mrs. Pozniak stepped out of the hardware store with a tiny brown paper bag that jingled. Mr. Kostkas Model-B Ford puttered past, followed by a strangers sleekly swishing Chrysler Airstream and then by Ernie Moskowicz on the butchers battered delivery bike.
In Antons Grocerya dim, cram-packed cubbyhole with an L-shaped wooden counter and shelves that reached the low ceilingMichaels mother wrapped two tins of peas for Mrs. Brunek. She tied them up tightly and handed them over without a smile, without a Come back soon or a Nice to see you. (Mrs. Anton had had a hard life.) One of Mrs. Bruneks boysCarl? Paul? Peter? they all looked so much alikepressed his nose to the glass of the penny-candy display. A floorboard creaked near the cereals, but that was just the bones of the elderly building settling deeper into the ground.
Michael was shelving Woodburys soap bars behind the longer, left-hand section of the counter. He was twenty at the time, a tall young man in ill-fitting clothes, his hair very black and cut too short, his face a shade too thin, with that dark kind of whiskers that always showed no matter how often he shaved. He was stacking the soap in a pyramid, a base of five topped by four, topped by three... although his mother had announced, more than once, that she preferred a more compact, less creative arrangement.
Then, tinkle, tinkle! and wham! and what seemed at first glance a torrent of young women exploded through the door. They brought a gust of cold air with them and the smell of auto exhaust. Help us! Wanda Bryk shrilled. Her best friend, Katie Vilna, had her arm around an unfamiliar girl in a red coat, and another girl pressed a handkerchief to the red-coated girls right temple. Shes been hurt! She needs first aid! Wanda cried.
Michael stopped his shelving. Mrs. Brunek clapped a hand to her cheek, and Carl or Paul or Peter drew in a whistle of a breath. But Mrs. Anton did not so much as blink. Why bring her here? she asked. Take her to the drugstore.
The drugstores closed, Katie told her.
Closed?
It says so on the door. Mr. Swedas joined the Coast Guard.
Hes done what?
The girl in the red coat was very pretty, despite the trickle of blood running past one ear. She was taller than the two neighborhood girls but slender, more slightly built, with a leafy cap of dark-blond hair and an upper lip that rose in two little points so sharp they might have been drawn with a pen. Michael came out from behind the counter to take a closer look at her. What happened? he asked heronly her, gazing at her intently.
Get her a Band-Aid! Get iodine! Wanda Bryk commanded. She had gone through grade school with Michael. She seemed to feel she could boss him around.
The girl said, I jumped off a streetcar.
Her voice was low and husky, a shock after Wandas thin violin notes. Her eyes were the purple-blue color of pansies. Michael swallowed.
A parades begun on Dubrowski Street, Katie was telling the others. All six of the Szapp boys are enlisting, havent you heard? And a couple of their friends besides. Theyve got this bannerWatch out, Japs! Here come the Szapps!and everyones seeing them off. Theyve gathered such a crowd that the traffic cant hardly get through. So Pauline hereshe was heading home from work; places are closing earlywhat does she do? Jumps off a speeding streetcar to join in.
The streetcar couldnt have been speeding all that fast, if traffic was clogged, but nobody pointed that out. Mrs. Brunek gave a sympathetic murmur. Carl or Paul or Peter said, Can I go, Mama? Can I? Can I go watch the parade?
I just thought we should try and support our boys, Pauline told Michael.
He swallowed again. He said, Well, of course.
Youre not going to help our boys any knocking yourself silly, the girl with the handkerchief said. From her tolerant tone, you could see that she and Pauline were friends, although she was less attractivea brown-haired girl with a calm expression and eyebrows so long and level that she seemed lacking in emotion.
Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «The Amateur Marriage»

Look at similar books to The Amateur Marriage. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «The Amateur Marriage»

Discussion, reviews of the book The Amateur Marriage and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.