One of America’s most beloved authors, Anne Tyler, whose works include “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant,” “The Accidental Tourist,” and Pulitzer Prize-winning “Breathing Lessons,” is back with a new novel. about a Baltimore family spanning several decades. .
“French Trinity” tells the story of the Garrett family, which goes from their first (and last) vacation together in the 1950s to the present of COVID.
Read an excerpt below.
Knopf
The Garrett family did not take a family vacation until 1959. Alice’s father, Robin Garrett, said they could not afford it. In addition, in the early days he refused to leave the store in the hands of other people. It was Grandpa Wellington’s store, so Wellington’s Plumbing Supply was only given to Robin’s care reluctantly and distrustfully after Grandpa Wellington had his first heart attack. So, of course, Robin had to prove himself, working six days a week and bringing the books home every Saturday for Alice’s mother to examine if she had fallen somewhere. Rest assured, he wasn’t a born businessman. By training he was a plumber; he used to buy his clothes at Wellington’s only to see the young Mercy Wellington behind the counter. Mercy Wellington was the prettiest thing she had ever seen, she told her children, and all the Baltimore plumbers were mad at her. Robin hadn’t had a chance. But miracles do happen, sometimes. Mercy told the children that she had liked his gentlemanly demeanor.
Then, after the death of Grandfather Wellington and the store became Robin’s, or really Mercy’s, legally speaking; the same: he had acted even more attached to it, more compelled to even supervise it, and so they had not yet taken a vacation. Not until he hired a deputy manager whom he referred to as “young Pickford,” a good-natured type without many brains but firm as a rock. That’s when Mercy said, “Okay, Robin, I’m on my feet now. We’re going on a family vacation.”
Summer 1959. A week at Deep Creek Lake. Small rustic hut in a row of other huts just a short walk from the lake itself. Not really by the sea, because Robin said it was too expensive, but close enough; close enough.
In 1959, Alice was seventeen years old, far beyond the stage when traveling with her family could be any kind of emotion. And her sister, Lily, was fifteen years old and madly in love with Jump Watkins, a freshman in high school and a champion basketball player. I couldn’t leave Jump for a whole week, he said. He asked if Jump could come to the lake with them, but Robin said no. He didn’t even bother to give a reason; he just said, “What? No,” and that was it.
So for the girls, the trip was not very promising. He had arrived too late in their lives. For his brother, though … well, David was only seven years old, the perfect age for a week at the lake. Anyway he was a cheerful kid, happy to take part in anything new and different. From the moment he knew they were going, he began to count the days on the calendar and plan what to bring with him. He must have imagined the lake as a kind of large bathtub, because he proposed packing his plastic tugs, his wooden sailboat, and his little plastic diver with wind. Mercy had to explain that they could float away from him in all that water. “Instead, I’ll give you a bucket of beach at the penny shop,” he promised, “and a shovel.”
Excerpt from “French Braid” by Anne Tyler. Copyright © 2022 by Anne Tyler. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without the written permission of the publisher.
For more information:
- “French Braid” by Anne Tyler (Knopf), in hardcover, e-book and audio formats, available on Amazon and Indiebound.
- annetyler.com
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