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A Quiet Hero
| Article
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20106 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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2 / 1992 |
1,832 Words |
| Author
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Douglas Burton
Douglas Burton is an associate senior editor for the Book
World section of The World & I. |
Anne Tyler's sympathetic treatment of a storefront church is a welcome new chapter in recent American fiction. After all, countless are the novels and films that use the steps of American churches as the dumping ground for every from of resentment. Indeed, the Church of the Second Chance is as much the hero of this novel as Ian Bedloe, whose travails in raising three children we follow over a twenty-two year interval of narrative.
It's refreshing to read about a hero whose chief project is not to rebel against some institutional evil. No, the problem relentlessly explored in these pages is Ian Bedloe's pursuit of two things: the meaning of his life and the spiritual muscle to shoulder his cross, which in his case is the burden of rearing his brother's orphaned children. For both projects, the unpretentious little church is the instrument of God's intervention.
Just why Ian's older brother, Danny, commits suicide so precipitously is never fully explained, although Ian assumes he is to blame. Nor do we ever find out whether the death of Danny's wife, Lucy, is accidental or a suicide. It seems that Tyler is not at all concerned with showing the cause of these human tragedies but keenly interested in showing a range of human responses to them. And here Tyler's sketch of the religious influences on three generations of Bedloes is both subtle and astute.
In the first chapter we encounter a seemingly normal and splendidly familiar middle-class Baltimore household. Family head Doug Bedloe is a popular teacher and baseball coach at the local high school. Wife Bee is the bubbling fount of warmth and good vibrations as well as keeper of the family myth: The Bedloes are somehow happier, more fortunate, more secure than other families; they are special. But whatever their other virtues, they are not an especially reflective bunch, and when the shine ends and the shoe begins, they don't come through for each other. On an impulse, eldest son Danny marries the mysterious Lucy, a young divorcee with two children. His apparent suicide is also an impulsive act, seemingly a result of Ian's thoughtlessly wounding remark. Bee later wonders hesitatingly if she should offer to baby-sit her grandchildren so Lucy can look for work. "But lately I've been so tired and my knees are acting up and I don't see how I could handle it. I know I ought to, though," she says. "Don't give it a moment's consideration," counters Doug. Ian feels responsible for his brother's death, but he shudders at the prospect of taking care of the children when his college career and a sexy girlfriend reach alluringly to him. Left largely to her own
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