A Patchwork Planet (Magill Book Reviews)

At a glance:

As Anne Tyler demonstrated in such earlier novels as THE CLOCK WINDER (1972) and DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT (1982), sometimes one’s family is the worst place to look for encouragement or acceptance. A PATCHWORK PLANET is the story of a young man who finally learned that lesson.

Barnaby Gaitlin disgraced his prominent Baltimore family when as a teenager he was arrested for housebreaking. Their low opinion of him was confirmed when he dropped out of college, abandoned a wife and baby, and began working for a company called Rent-a-Back. Though his elderly clients find him far kinder and more dependable than their own children, Barnaby still believes what his mother, his brother, and his ex-wife have told him so often: that he is not a trustworthy person.

Since suggestions from angels made his ancestors wealthy, Barnaby at first assumes that a woman he meets in a train station is an angel sent to change his luck. Sophia Maynard turns out to be an ordinary person, but she does help Barnaby to think better of himself, at least until her aunt accuses him of theft and it becomes clear that Sophia does not trust him. His real friends, Barnaby finds, are his employer, his clients, and his fellow-worker Martine, who it seems has been in love with him all along.

With its gentle comedy, its compassionate understanding of human nature, and, above all, its genuine wisdom, PATCHWORK PLANET is one of the best of Anne Tyler’s novels.

Sources for Further Study

Booklist. XCIV, March 1, 1998, p. 1045.

The Christian Century. CXV, July 29, 1998, p. 726.

Library Journal. CXXIII, April 15, 1998, p. 117.

Los Angeles Times Book Review. April 19, 1998, p. 58.

The New York Times Book Review. CIII, April 19, 1998, p. 12.

The New Yorker. LXXIV, July 13, 1998, p. 75.

Publishers Weekly. CCXLV, March 16, 1998, p. 51.

Time. CLI, April 27, 1998, p. 80.

The Times Literary Supplement. June 19, 1998, p. 25.

The Washington Post Book World. XXVIII, May 3, 1998, p. 4.