Review: Three Days in June by Anne Tyler

Hindustan Times

3 days ago

At 83, the Pulitzer Prize winning-American writer Anne Tyler is out with her 25th novel, Three Days in June. This story of a Baltimorean reaffirms her reputation for writing about family, love, ageing, heartbreak and infidelity in their rawest forms. A view of Baltimore where Anne Tyler's novel is set. (Shutterstock)
193pp, ₹558; Vintage Digital
This book's protagonist 61-year-old Gail Baines began as a teacher in Mathematics in the local high school but left teaching to pursue her role as the assistant to the headmistress. Being an administrator suited her fine until the headmistress tells her of her retirement and pleads with Gail to take voluntary retirement as well. This has happened on the day before her daughter Debbie's wedding. There is an errand to run, the salon to visit, and the rehearsal dinner to attend. The excitement of the wedding has already sapped Gail. Then, her ex-husband arrives at her doorstep with a cat in tow. Set across three days in June, the reader follows Gail as she navigates sharing space with Max after two decades, deals with the hiccups in her daughter's wedding, and recalls times gone by that have left her in a state. Wise and moving, the story is full of the sharp observations and humour so common in Tyler's works.
The author knows how to pin her reader down from the first page. The novel begins with: 'People don't tap their watches anymore; have you noticed?' From the title indicating the temporal to the first line zeroing in on a wrist watch, it is clear that Three Days in June is as much about time as it is about a woman's life. In her past novels, time and memory feature significantly and provide insights into her characters. Recall Pearl and her son going through a box of photographs in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, or the structure of The Amateur Marriage that follows Michael and Pauline over the course of their lives. Tyler works with time similarly in this novel. Gail is confronted by the prospect of being overtaken by age, by her employer telling her that she 'lacks people skills', her daughter leaving her for a married life, and the past running into her present. As the wedding approaches, time and memory clamber to the forefront and offers Gail the opportunity to think over her decisions.
Less than 200 pages long, the novel presents Tyler's emerging preference for writing shorter books. Her 2015-Booker shortlisted A Spool of Blue Thread, which runs into 370 pages, was the novel she thought she'd never stop writing. The next four books were not as long but were still full of beauty and charm. Gail's story is a stunning portrait of a woman who realizes, 'I'm too young for this… Not too old, as you might expect, but too young, too inept, too uninformed.' When she asks, 'Why did everyone just assume I knew what I was doing?' the readers can hear the cracks and vulnerability in her voice. This book really is a remarkable example of writing less but more on every page.
The winning point arrives with Tyler's meditation on marriage, relationships, and infidelity. On the day of the wedding rehearsal, Debbie cries to her parents that her fiancé has been unfaithful. While Max says the wedding should not be called off, Gail, who is insistent on protecting her daughter, is vehemently opposed to it. At her father's reaction, Debbie bursts out: 'Men just think these things are normal'. But then she takes his suggestion to speak to her fiancé before calling things off. Gail is haunted by the memory of her marriage to Max and the events leading up to their divorce. As her daughter decides on a decision that suits her, she wonders what makes people stay together. As in every Anne Tyler novel, the reader is driven, through Gail, to ponder over questions: why do families exist? What made love between two people exist as a being that has a life of its own? What becomes of people who promised a forever before God and then turned away from their promises?
Author Anne Taylor (Courtesy The Booker Prize)
The first-person narrative style takes the reader into the working of Gail's mind. She is witty, humorous, and projects an air of nonchalance. Like Patrick Modiano and Alice Munro, Tyler lets her characters reveal themselves. And just when a reader thinks they know the character through and through, they are surprised.
Those devoted readers who have grown up being lost and found in Anne Tyler's Baltimore are sure to enjoy this book; those who are new to her work will find Three Days in June is a great introduction to her inimitable style.
Rahul Singh is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Presidency University, Kolkata. He writes about books at (@rahulzsing) X and (@fook_bood) Instagram.