At 83, Anne Tyler Has a New Novel. She'd Rather Talk About Anything Else.

New York Times

10-02-2025

Anne Tyler and I sat facing one another on a couch overlooking a man-made pond at her retirement community outside of Baltimore. She moved there in 2022 and likes the place well enough, with its woodsy walking trails, salt water pool and art studio.
But when I asked Tyler, who is 83, what clubs or activities she's joined at the sprawling facility, her answer was an apologetic 'Nothing?'
Tyler is too busy writing books. Her 25th novel, 'Three Days in June,' comes out on Feb. 11, and she's already percolating another.
'I absolutely have to pick up a pen every weekday morning,' she said, opening a drawer to show her collection of Uni-Ball Signos in black ink. 'They're non-friction. I used to wear a Band-Aid on my finger, and now I don't need one.'
This is what passes for a revelation from Tyler, who rarely gives interviews and gracefully dodges questions about work. It's not that she's secretive or superstitious about her 'craft' (a word she'd never use in this context). She just doesn't understand what the hoopla is about: She established a writing routine and stuck with it, simple as that.
Tyler has now been a fixture of the literary world for more than 60 years.
When her first book, 'If Morning Ever Comes' was published in 1964, the Times's critic described it as 'an exceedingly good novel, so mature, so gently wise and so brightly amusing that, if it weren't printed right there on the jacket, few readers would suspect that Mrs. Tyler was only 22.'
Since then, Tyler has produced a book every few years. She won a Pulitzer Prize for 'Breathing Lessons' in 1989, and is a three-time finalist for the National Book Award. Her novels have sold 13 million copies worldwide, and a few have been made into movies, including 'Earthly Possessions' (1977) and 'The Accidental Tourist' (1985).
Her stories tend to feature cranky but decent eccentrics who bump up against obstacles with varying degrees of discomfort. Most take place in Baltimore and revolve around families on a spectrum from quirky to dysfunctional.
They're staples of book clubs, carry-on bags and best-seller lists, but you won't find copies of Tyler's novels in her single story, two-bedroom home. She didn't keep any when she downsized.
'Why would I bother?' Tyler said. 'I ordered Kindle copies so I can check something if I need to.'
Her schedule is the same every morning: First, she takes a walk. Then she sits at a white desk beneath two Hopperesque paintings by her older daughter, Tezh Modarressi. She drinks coffee with cream, and writes in longhand, in unlined paper, until lunchtime. When she has a decent chunk — several pages or a scene — she types it into her laptop.
There's no magical word count, no specific daily goal.
'I write page one, chapter one, first event, and keep going,' Tyler said. She doesn't agonize or attempt to resurrect ideas that flopped. 'You must resist the urge to keep scraps and work them up into something else. Kiss of death.'
She raved about the retirement community's heavy-duty shredder: 'You put clumps of paper in and it just vanishes!'
Occasionally Tyler consults a collection of observations and conversational snippets she's jotted on notecards and stowed in a speckled container labeled 'Blue Box.' (Its predecessor was blue; the name stuck.) Some cards have languished for 30 years or more, but she keeps adding to her supply.
'I should be able to empty it and quit work, right?' Tyler said. 'The trouble is, new things always come.'
In six decades, Tyler has only visited the offices of her publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, a handful of times. She's worked with three editors — Judith Jones and Sonny Mehta, both legends in their own right, and now Diana Tejerina Miller, who said in an interview that she was, at first, intimidated by Tyler.
'I remember taking her paperbacks off my mom's bookshelf,' Miller said. 'She delivers work that is finished. Some writers want to talk to their editors at various stages in a brainstorming, rough draft sort of way. Anne takes a novel as far as she can.'
Once a book is out in the world, Tyler lets it go. She spoke of characters from 'Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant' (1982) and 'French Braid' (2022) with fond detachment, as if recalling a distant cousin with whom she no longer exchanges holiday cards.
'It's like a mother cat who doesn't recognize her grown kitten when she meets him on the street,' Tyler said. 'A book is done and then I put it away and have to remember, what exactly is it about?'
Tyler doesn't teach, attend conferences, participate in social media or belong to a writing group or a book club.
'I don't do well discussing books,' she said. 'I read it, toss it, read a new one.'
She quit writing reviews years ago. 'That was my one foray into nonfiction,' Tyler said. 'If I'm writing fiction and I get deep enough into it, all of a sudden it feels like I'm telling the truth. If I'm writing nonfiction, I write down something I absolutely believe, and it'll look like a lie.'
In 1991, Tyler weighed in on 'Object Lessons,' Anna Quindlen's debut novel, for the Times. 'It was a mixed review but I learned something from it about how to blend back story into plot,' Quindlen wrote in an email. 'More important, I learned that it was possible to be a literary household name and yet be open and generous with someone new to the game.'
Liane Moriarty, the author of 'Here One Moment' and 'Big Little Lies,' among other best-sellers, wrote in an email that 'The Accidental Tourist' was her first Tyler novel: 'It was a revelation to me that you could write such a funny, wonderful book about ordinary people leading ordinary domestic lives. It was all those tiny perfect details that enthralled me.'
Moriarty continued, 'Sometimes when I sit down to write I will pick up an Anne Tyler book, read a page, and then tell myself, 'OK, Liane, just do that.'
Tyler doesn't include acknowledgments pages in her books, nor does she use epigraphs. Only one of her books, 'A Patchwork Planet' (1998), contains a dedication: 'In loving memory of my husband, Taghi Modarressi.'
Modarressi, a psychiatrist and novelist, died in 1997, but it's his last name that appears in small print beneath the bell on Tyler's door. This might explain why some of her neighbors have no idea that she's a best-selling author.
'Why would they know?' Tyler asked, genuinely baffled. 'Writers are not like movie stars. You don't see their faces all around.'
Plus, she said, 'How many people read books?'
Tyler admires authors like Claire Keegan, who's only written a couple of novels; she fears she's written too many and wouldn't mind lopping off the first few on her list. She recommended 'Behind You is the Sea' by Susan Muaddi Duraj, whom she met through her novelist friend Madison Smartt Bell.
Tyler and Bell have been friends for 40 years. In that time, they've discussed Tyler's work 'practically never,' Bell wrote in an email. 'She might mention whether she's had a good or bad writing day but not more. We can have extensive conversations about other people's work (Anne has always kept abreast of contemporary fiction) but not our own.'
Here's a partial list of topics Tyler was happy to chat about: Motherhood, marriage, hair, hotels, sisters, grandchildren, grocery shopping, cats, Covid, cooking (she's determined to perfect air fried brussels sprouts) and the local elementary school where she volunteers.
She had a lot to say on this last subject.
'I kept hearing about how kids fell so far behind during Covid times,' Tyler said. 'God forbid I ever have to teach math to anybody, but I am very good at sitting with a kid who's learning to read. I just love that process.'
After passing a basic aptitude test, Tyler was assigned to work with third graders. The reality of classroom instruction wasn't quite what she'd hoped for: Her first task involved rolling a trio of dice printed with letters and helping a pair of eight year-olds to record what they saw.
'You had to write it down: T-O-T. Is it a word, isn't it a word? It is a word. J-A-J. Not a word,' Tyler said. 'These kids were so bored. One was off to the bathroom. Of course he had to go to the bathroom; I would have to go to the bathroom too!'
The next activity was equally joyless. Students wrote letters to their future selves, describing in painstaking detail how they planned to achieve their goals. For instance, if they wanted to work in construction, they listed the tools they'd need to learn how to use.
'I found it the most discouraging and demoralizing thing,' Tyler said.
Now Tyler spends occasional afternoons sorting clothing donations for the school. She enjoys chatting with fellow volunteers and imagining the student who will be lucky enough to land, say, a sequined dress 'with ruffles like wings.'
But for the most part, while her neighbors are gardening, beekeeping and painting ceramics, Tyler is writing.
She's also gearing up for the publication of 'Three Days in June.'
Clocking in at a trim 176 pages, the book follows a socially awkward divorced couple through the wedding of their only child. Of course it takes place in Baltimore. Tyler has lived there for most of her adult life, though she admitted that she doesn't know the city as well as she used to.
Indeed Tyler's recent books seem to be set in a time outside of time. They're not old-fashioned, exactly, but young people are more formal than they should be, like they're wearing collared shirts when might be more comfortable in sweats.
Still, parents and children hew to timeless patterns: Adoration, exasperation, connection, repeat. Tyler lights up the space between people, and shows how it feels to be on the outside looking in. This is her superpower (a word she'd reserve for Marvel characters), and it's grown even stronger with age.
At the end of our visit, Tyler paused en route to her front door. She wanted to show me a framed drawing by Mitra Modarressi, her younger daughter, who has written and illustrated several books for children. The picture was from 'Tumble Tower,' one they worked on together, and Tyler lingered over the details — a ball of yarn, a cat, the chaotic jumble of a kid's room.
Then she disappeared into one of her own tidy bedrooms to grab my coat from a closet.
'I've thoroughly enjoyed talking with you,' Tyler said, holding the coat at precisely the right height while I slipped my arms inside. 'I'm just sorry we had to talk about my writing.'