Review: Ladder of Years

Posted on May 17, 2017 inFiction

 

“See, I’ve always pictured life as one of those ladders you find on playground sliding boards-a sort of ladder years where you climb higher and higher, and then, oops! You fall over the edge and others move up behind you.”

Delia Grinstead: wife, mother, runaway. The basic plot of Anne Tyler’s Ladder of Years is this: A woman, frustrated with being ignored and unappreciated by her family (“Sometimes she felt like a tiny gnat, whirring around her family’s edges.”), takes a walk down the beach one day while on a family vacation. And just keeps going. With only her bathing suit, a beach bag, and some cash, she disappears to a small town to start from scratch.

But of course, as with all of Tyler’s novels, this is not just another fed-up-mom-needs-a-break book. The inciting action of the novel doesn’t even take place until almost a quarter of the way through, and the reader is already hooked thanks to Tyler’s beautiful, entrancing writing. It is about so much more than a tired mom and wife needing a break. It is about a woman who has never had the opportunity to be an individual and the unconventional way she goes about righting that.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating for moms everywhere to run away. (Although if you’re a parent, I’m 100% sure you’re going to understand where she’s coming from and will perhaps, secretly, be cheering her on.) This is more of an examination of a path chosen. A life unlived versus a life with everything already figured out. Tyler uses Delia to observe marriage and how beginning expectations are very different from what’s expected down the road, as well as how easy it can be to put on a mask instead of facing one’s own realities and fears. Delia goes from playing the expectant role of doting wife and mother to playing the role of “Miss Grinstead” in her new life. There are truths and lies to both facades, and Delia must figure out the gray space in between in which her true self resides. What Delia discovers she’s been searching for all along surprises even her in the end.

This is one of my very favorite books, and one of the few that I’ve re-read several times. It feels like a comfy sweater that I can get lost in for a few hours, and I find something new about Delia with each reading. This is not an action-packed novel, so don’t go in expecting a plot-heavy book with lots of twists and turns. It is a beautiful study in character. If you just plain like good writing, definitely give this one a try!

 

“But if you never did anything you couldn’t undo you’d end up doing nothing at all.”