Comparing Family in Breathing Lessons, Homesick Restaurant, and Acciden

Family Instability in Breathing Lessons, Homesick Restaurant, and Accidental Tourist The perfect, suburban family has become a prominant theme and stereotype in American culture. Families from the works of Anne Tyler represent the exact opposite of this cultural stereotype. None of Tylers novels contain families with faithful, domestic wives, breadwinning husbands, and 2.3 well-behaved, perfect children. Tyler kills this misconcieved stereotype in Breathing Lessons, dinner party at the Homesick Restaurant, and The Accidental Tourist. Anne Tyler grew up with her parents on a series of experimental communes, so she developed a different perception of family action. She observes domestic life from the view of an outsider looking in. Minor-- and sometimes major-- flaws characterize the average family in Tylers novels because many of todays families are imperfect. Because of her communal upbringing, she observes family life more honestly than do writers who idealize family life. Tyl ers novels show that the picture most people see when they think of the typical American family is shifting from the Cleavers to the Simpsons. Anne Tyler was born in Minnesota in 1941, entirely much of her childhood was spent moving around. Tyler never spent a minute of her childhood living in the type of suburban household so typical of the 1940s and 1950s. Because large, domestic Southern families surrounded her as she grew up, she was somewhat of an outsider in society. Tylers unorthodox upbringing caused her ...to view the normal world with a trusted amount of distance and surprise, which can sometimes be helpful to a writer(Crane 2). Tyler realistically depicts family relationships without over-exaggerating them.... ...--- .The Accidental Tourist. New York Knopf, 1985. -----.Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. New York Fawcett Columbine, 1982. Yardley, Jonathan. Anne Tylers Family Circles. capital letter Post, August 25, 1985, (pp. 311-313). Mathewson, Joseph. Taking the Anne Tyler Tour. Horizon, Vol. 28, no. 7, September 1985, (p. 313). Demott, Benjamin. Funny, Wise and True. New York Times Book Review, March 14, 1982, (p. 432). Updike, John. Bellow, Vonnegut, Tyler, Le Guin, Cheever. Hugging the ShoreEssays and Criticism, New York Knopf 1983, (pp. 434-435). A coup doeil Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Available Online, April 23,1999, http// www.Amazon.com. A Glance Breathing Lessons. Available Online, April 23, 1999, http// www.Amazon.com. Crane, Gwen. Anne Tyler. Scribner Writers CD, (pp. 1-19).