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If Morning Ever Comes

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

The audio edition of If Morning Ever Comes by Anne Tyler.

Ben Joe is the only boy in a family of six sisters, Mama and Gram. He is studying for a law degree in New York when he hears his eldest sister Joanne has left her husband and returned home with her baby girl. Out of a mixture of homesickness and duty Ben Joe returns to the home in which he has always felt like an outsider.

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

 Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological World Literature

Critic reviews

Funny, serious, touching, zany, delightful, revealing...a triumph of perception
Anne Tyler has won herself a devoted following. Rightly so: her novels are beautifully controlled, witty, subtle, with an undercurrent of human warmth
She is a writer who gets to the heart of the matter without being glib, and cleverly reveals the extraordinary in seemingly ordinary lives
Anne Tyler's touch is deft, her perceptions keen, her ear for speech phenomenal, her people triumphantly alive... Only a rarely talented novelist could have written this fine book
Her fiction is a quiet, gentle reminder of the goodness to be found in most ordinary lives
All stars
Most relevant
...but this was dull.

I've listened to 4 hours and almost nothing has happened. I don't care about the protagonist or his family. There's a timeless quality to the small town and the families, but it felt like a writing exercise more than an actual novel.

It is of course, beautifully written. I don't think Anne Tyler knows how to not craft sentences well. There's a lovely sense of place and that slow feeling of aimlessly frittering away time. Which is great as an evocation, but not actually that interesting to read about. There's no tension at all and not much happening in general.

I've loved almost all of Tylers books, but this one is a real snooze fest. Unless you're a hard core fan (which to be fair, I thought i was till I read this book, I'd say skip this and read, or re-read Clock Dance instead. That's stunningly good.

This one? I'm going to return it. Which is something I never thought I'd do with her work. but I am that disappointed in it

Never thought I'd say this about a Tyler novel...

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At first I found the narration distracting and the voice of old.man just unbearable but eventually found myself thinking in the same soft drawl.
Not the usual immersion in the central character ( I wonder if she doesn't write males so well as females) which left the story feeling disconnected.
Some nicely atmospheric scenes especially of cold night walks in a small town.
I won't listen again.

Not the usual Anne Tyler treat...

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The only rather annoying thing was the person who read it put a particular effort into imitating characters’ accents and volume of their speech, which made me cringe and turn the volume down every time the older characters spoke. This was absolutely unnecessary. Otherwise an wonderful listen!

Another fascinating story by Anne Tyler

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Really liked it , but I use audio books to help me to sleep because I suffer from insomnia. This book was not good because the narrator put on awful screechy / screamy voices for one or two characters . Some parts really not restful to listen to.

great book but alarming screechy sections

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I see that some other reviewers have expressed views that “nothing happens” but for me, this is a typical Tyler story where what happens is all below the surface and subtly indicated by Tyler’s delicate writing. Don’t come to this expecting pacy drama, – it’s a Tyler story, that’s not why we read her work, but do enjoy the interplay of family relationships and the deftly portrayed interior world of the main characters.
The so-called screechy rendition of the grandmother, I thought was fantastically funny, and gave her warmth and credibility. Read with care and precision.

A un nother beautifully crafted Tyler story

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