Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Tyler, Anne (Vol. 205) - Elizabeth Mahn Nollen (essay date 1997)

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Elizabeth Mahn Nollen (essay date 1997)

SOURCE: Nollen, Elizabeth Mahn. “Fatherhood Lost and Regained in the Novels of Anne Tyler.” In Family Matters in the British and American Novel, edited by Andrea O'Reilly Herrera, Elizabeth Mahn Nollen, and Sheila Reitzel Foor, pp. 217-35. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1997.

[In the following essay, Nollen examines three father figures in Tyler's fiction: Jeremy Pauling in Celestial Navigation, Ian Bedloe in Saint Maybe, and Macon Leary in The Accidental Tourist.]

Understandably, the most common critical approach to the works of Anne Tyler is to study her depiction of the American family. Doris Betts claims that “Family and its clutter remain her metaphor for life” (31). John Updike notes her “fascination with families” (qtd. in Salwak 115) while Ann Romines details Tyler's use of “the home plot” (qtd. in Salwak 163). Jay Parini...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Sanjukta Dasgupta (essay date winter 1997)
   2. Elizabeth Mahn Nollen (essay date 1997)
   3. James Grove (essay date 1997)
   4. Linda Simon (review date August 1998)
   5. Joyce R. Durham (essay date fall 1998)
   6. Cheryl Devon Coleman (essay date summer 2000)
   7. Nora Foster Stovel (review date January 2001)
   8. Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson (essay date spring 2001)
   9. Anita Brookner (review date 2 June 2001)
   10. Ellen Cronan Rose (review date July 2001)
   11. Rita D. Jacobs (review date spring 2002)
   12. Barbara Harrell Carson (essay date fall-winter 2002)
   13. Paul Christian Jones (essay date spring 2003)
   14. Publishers Weekly (review date 22 December 2003)
   15. Anita Brookner (review date 3 January 2004)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Anne Tyler