The Amateur Marriage

"A brilliant writer...funny, tragic, wise" (Lynne Truss Independent)

"Anne Tyler is a formidably skilful story-teller, with every narrative trick at her effortless command" (Daily Telegraph)

"Tyler's compelling, moving and often amusing tale is the story of any marriage - every page brings a smile of recognition to the reader" (Daily Mail)

"The meanings of this beautifully written novel reach far wider than Baltimore. I shed a tear as I finished the Antons' story" (Evening Standard)

"Tyler is an exquisite chronicler of the everyday" (Observer)

Michael and Pauline seemed like the perfect couple - young, good-looking, made for each other. The moment she walked into his mother's grocery store in Baltimore, he was smitten, and in the heat of World War II fervour, they marry in haste. From the sound of the cash register in the old grocery to the counter-culture jargon of the sixties, from the miniskirts to the multilayers of later years, we watch their lives unspool and see the consequences of their very mismatched marriage.

OVER A MILLION ANNE TYLER BOOKS SOLD

‘She’s changed my perception on life’ Anna Chancellor

‘One of my favourite authors ’ Liane Moriarty

‘She spins gold' Elizabeth Buchan

‘Anne Tyler has no peer’ Anita Shreve

‘My favourite writer, and the best line-and-length novelist in the world’ Nick Hornby

‘A masterly author’ Sebastian Faulks

‘Tyler is not merely good, she is wickedly good’ John Updike

‘I love Anne Tyler’ Anita Brookner

‘Her fiction has strength of vision, originality, freshness, unconquerable humour’ Eudora Welty