Morgan's Passing

Morgan's Passing is one of my top favorites of Anne Tyler's many books, perhaps because I'm a midwife, and the book contains one of the most hilarious, compassionate, and realistic childbirth scenes I've ever read. Morgan of the title delivers a baby in a car, and when he asks the guy to get some newspaper, the flustered fellow asks, "The Times, the Post, or the Trib??" or some such nonsense. And believe me, I know from experience that you just can't make that kind of stuff up. It's true, it's all true.But back to the main theme. Morgan is a very odd and very irritating eccentric, married to a clearly long-suffering wife with whom he has seven children. All girls. Morgan works in a hardware store where he mostly tries to talk people out of buying the stock. Morgan talks and talks and talks and talks. And Morgan is going through a confusing slide into a mid life crisis.It makes for some of Tyler's best writing - and for some of our best reading.

Anne Tyler's "Morgan's Passing" provides probably the most moving story of middle age I've ever read--not for any illness or newfound love of life or striking discoveries made by Morgan Gower, the main character, but because of the realistic way she shows him slipping into eccentricity and stodginess and fear of old age. Without giving away too much detail for those who haven't had the profound pleasure of reading this engrossing novel themselves, Morgan ends up grasping at something he thinks will make life different and boy, does it ever.That makes this sound like a depressing novel, which it most certainly is not. Morgan and his wife, Bonny, are the parents of seven daughters, and the novel is a lively one filled with the fully three-dimensional, quirky, utterly human characters for which Tyler is justly famed. The underpinnings of the story are serious (what do you do when everything about your life is different from what you'd hoped or imagined?), but the novel itself has many hilarious moments. Witness Morgan in Cullen's Hardware Store, where he has worked forever and where he is absolutely no good with the customers:Morgan had to rise and dust off his knees, regretfully, and wait on a man in coveralls who wanted to buy a Hide-A-Key. "What for?" Morgan asked. "Why spend good money on a little tin box? Do you see the price of this thing?""Well, but last week I locked the keys inside my car, don't you know, and I was thinking how maybe I could hide an extra key beneath the--""Look," said Morgan. "All you do is take a piece of dental floss, waxed. Surely you have dental floss. Thread your extra key on it, double it for strength, tie it to your radiator grille and ket the key hang down inside. Simple! Costs you nothing.""Well, but this here Hide-A-Key--""Are you not standing in the presence of a man whose wife perpetually mislays his car keys for him?" Morgan asked. The man glanced around him. "ME, I mean. She loses all I own," Morgan said, "And I've never had a Hide-A-Key in my life.""Well, still," the man said doggedly, "I think I'll just go ahead with this here.""What is it?" Morgan asked. "You don't have dental floss? Never mind! I tell you what I'll do: you come back this same time tomorrow, I'll have a piece for you from home. Free, no charge. A gift. All right? I'll bring you in a yard or two.""For Christ's sake," said the man, "will you let me buy one cruddy Hide-A-Key?"Morgan flung his hands up. "Of course!" he said. "Be my guest! Waste your money! Fill your life with junk!" He stabbed the cash register keys. "A dollar twenty-nine," he said."It's MY dollar-twenty-nine, I'll waste it however I like," said the man, pressing the money into Morgan's palm. "Maniac.""Junkie!"There are many riches in "Morgan's Passing," and I highly recommend it to anyone who discovered Anne Tyler later in her career and hasn't yet indulged in her earlier works. This is a super book.

Having read other reader's reviews of Ladder of Years, Searching For Caleb, and now this lovely book, I'm beginning to see that strong writing is not enough for some people. Either you like Anne Tyler's writing or you don't (and I certainly do) and you either see her characters as appealing or annoying. I find them both, actually, but as I'm not expecting them to be magnanimous, life-affirming role models I go with the journeys they take and don't carp on their foibles. Morgan may be Tyler's most exasperating character - the sort of person you'd want to smack if you knew him personally. Why he doesn't make me want to scream on the page is a mystery to me - must be that Tyler's writing is so enjoyable that Morgan's eccentricities amuse me. Would I laugh at his decisions if he were an acquaintance in real life? Certainly not, but that's beyond the point - he is a fictional character, and as such springs fully to life, warts and all. The character of Emily is lovely and lively and certainly events that take place in the book are surprising and sad. I enjoy all of Anne Tyler's creations - some more than others - and this is one of her novels I would recommend highly.

I have become an extreme fan of Anne Tyler over this past year, due mainly to a research project I had to complete on her. Not only does she fascinate me, but her books enchant me; I always keep reaching out for the next one. Morgan's Passing was one of my favorites by Tyler. It was different, in some ways, from her other novels, but I happily found myself laughing outloud time and time again. Morgan was such an amusing character; Tyler's characters always have a way of gaining my respect. It was a delightful book to read and the surprises I came around while doing so made me very satisfied that I had found Anne Tyler and had continued to read her books even after the research paper was finished. This is a must read for any Anne Tyler fan or anyone looking for a book to read that deals with family, relationships, and real life situations.