The Accidental Tourist - (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Anne Tyler (Paperback)

About the Book

Meet Macon Leary--a travel writer who hates both travel and strangeness. Grounded by loneliness, comfort, and a somewhat odd domestic life, Macon is about to embark on a surprising new adventure, arriving in the form of a fuzzy-haired dog obedience trainer who promises to turn his life around.

Book Synopsis

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author--an irresistible novel exploring the slippery alchemy of attracting opposites, and the struggle to rebuild one's life after unspeakable tragedy

Travel writer Macon Leary hates travel, adventure, surprises, and anything outside of his routine. Immobilized by grief, Macon is becoming increasingly prickly and alone, anchored by his solitude and an unwillingness to compromise his creature comforts. Then he meets Muriel, an eccentric dog trainer too optimistic to let Macon disappear into himself. Despite Macon's best efforts to remain insulated, Muriel up-ends his solitary, systemized life, catapulting him into the center of a messy, beautiful love story he never imagined. A fresh and timeless tale of unexpected bliss, The Accidental Tourist showcases Tyler's talents for making characters--and their relationships--feel both real and magical.

"Incandescent, heartbreaking, exhilarating...One cannot reasonably expect fiction to be much better than this." --The Washington Post

Review Quotes

"Poignant . . . funny . . . The Accidental Tourist is one of her best. . . . [Tyler] has never been stronger."--The New York Times

"Bittersweet . . . evocative . . . It's easy to forget this is the warm lull of fiction; you half-expect to run into her characters at the dry cleaners. . . . Tyler [is] a writer of great compassion."--The Boston Globe

"Tyler has given us an endlessly diverting book whose strength gathers gradually to become a genuinely thrilling one."--Los Angeles Times

"A delight . . . a graceful comic novel about getting through life."--The Wall Street Journal

"A rarely equaled richness and depth . . . Delicious humor . . . Without Anne Tyler, American fiction would be an immeasurably bleaker place."--Newday

"Incandescent, heartbreaking, exhilarating . . . One cannot reasonably expect fiction to be much better than this."--The Washington Post

"Hilarious . . . and touching . . . Anne Tyler is a wise and perceptive writer with a warm understanding of human foibles."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Comic . . . Sweetly perverse . . . A novel animated by witty invention and lively personalities."--Time

"Anne Tyler [is] covering common ground with uncommon insight. . . . Convincingly real."--People

About the Author

ANNE TYLER was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the author of more than twenty novels. Her twentieth novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2015. Her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.