A Novel to Help Deal With Trauma.

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler

I love to read. I work in a library and read during lunch. I read online; I read physical books; I celebrate with trips to half-price books. I’m a book alcoholic. The thought of not having something to read scares me, and while I have not yet resorted to hiding books in the back of the freezer, I do have my to-be-read pile sorted into several subsets of books.

One of my recent reads talked about The Accidental Tourist as the best book they had ever read about trauma.

I don’t recall what book it was. Though, if I had to guess, based on my Goodreads list, I would say it was 500 Miles From You by Jenny Colgan or The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman.

By the way, both books are outstanding in a slightly predictable way and worth a read.

So I just finished The Accidental Tourist, and I had a few thoughts.

But first, let’s run the numbers.

The book was first published in 2002 and is a New York Times bestseller. In addition, they made it into a movie that won an academy award for best-supporting actress.

It has 102,393 ratings on Goodreads, scoring an average of 3.9.

A long-time married couple has one son. Their son is murdered in a fast food robbery as the book opens. The parents grieve, and then the wife leaves the husband.

The husband has many quirks, breaks his leg, and ends up moving back in with his family. The family is also quirky; they don’t, for instance, answer the phone. The sister lives with three brothers takes care of them and, the household, and the neighbors.

The wife seems okay; she starts divorce proceedings and dates a doctor.

The husband meets a much younger woman, who, by sheer dint of personality, forces him out of his shell. He moves in with her and her young son. The house he lived in with his wife and former son sits empty.

The boy has lots of medical issues, some imagined and some not. The husband and son grow closer, and each benefits…

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