Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler

By turns endearing and infuriating, Breathing Lessons is a portrait of a marriage in the course of a single day, as Anne Tyler sees the extraordinary in the ordinary, and celebrates the heroisms of the everyday.

Maggie and Ira Moran have been married 28 years, an average couple leading an average life. Except that Maggie Moran is a klutzy, impetuous busybody who will borrow the ear of any sympathetic listener who crosses her path, while her husband Ira is resigned to his wife’s machinations, even as he himself remains steadfastly uncommunicative and judgmental. As a funeral draws the Morans out from their Baltimore home to Deer Lick, Pennsylvania, their trip is derailed by a number of unexpected and comical detours, as the incompatibility in Maggie and Ira’s marriage reveals itself, alongside the joy, pain, and love that continues to hold them together.

With wry humour, charm, and keen observation, Breathing Lessons instructs us in times of stress: keep calm and remember to breathe.

Publication History: Penguin Canada, TR, 01/03

ANNE TYLER was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the author of many beloved novels, including The Beginner’s Goodbye, A Spool of Blue Thread, and Vinegar Girl. Her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Author Residence: Baltimore, Maryland

Author Hometown: Raleigh, North Carolina