Book 12 was really supposed to be Vanity Fair, but I stopped reading partway through to dive into Anne Tyler’s Saint Maybe, which I picked up at the Calgary Reads book sale last week. I often have more than one book on the go at the same time. I like to mix it up a little, especially when I’m reading classics.

I had only read one of Tyler’s novels before – Ladder of Years, which I picked up whenever it was a nearly-new novel. I couldn’t get into it for some reason, and after that tended to avoid her books. Which is why I was so surprised when a friend in my critique group said my writing reminded me of Tyler’s. After reading Saint Maybe I consider that a massive compliment. She is, as one reviewer put it, “drawn to small-scale domestic dramas.” This can be taken as either praise or criticism of her work, I suppose, but there’s something about her writing – the plain-spoken rhythm of it, the well-drawn characters – that transforms the everyday into something much more significant. I realize some people want big adventure and splashy escapism when they open a novel. I do, too, sometimes. But I’m often struck by how well some writers can tell stories rooted in the everyday. Anne Tyler is one of those writers.

The novel begins when Danny Bedloe brings his wife-to-be home to meet his family. He introduces her as “the woman who changed his life,” but Lucy quickly comes to change all their lives, especially that of Danny’s younger brother, Ian. Through a series of twists and tragedies Ian becomes the guardian of his nieces and nephew, the older two of whom were Lucy’s from a mysterious, previous  marriage. The story focuses on Ian’s quest for forgiveness, which leads him to drop out of college and attend The Church of the Second Chance, whose followers dedicate their lives to absolving their sins in practical, meaningful ways (like raising their brother’s three children, for example).

There is a scene later in the book where Ian visits the reverend of the church, and he brings along onion dip and potato chips. The reverend has always wanted to know how to make onion dip but has never learned, and so Ian teaches him (yes, soup plus sour cream) and they eat the potato chips and talk about the future of the church. I found this scene fascinating – Tyler weaves together the mundane and the significant so deftly the scene is wonderfully revealing. What does not knowing how to make his mother’s onion dip, which is really just onion soup mix and sour cream, say about a person? His relationship with his mother? His relationship with the person who shows him the recipe?

I read so often about how to craft scenes that do more than one thing, and it’s brilliant to see it laid out on a page. It has given me something to aspire to, that’s for certain.