The Accidental Tourist

In this irresistible best-selling novel, Anne Tyler explores the slippery alchemy of attracting opposites, and the struggle to rebuild one’s life after an unspeakable tragedy. Travel writer Macon Leary hates travel, adventure, surprises, and anything outside of his routine. Immobilized by grief, Macon is becoming increasingly prickly and alone, anchored by his solitude and an unwillingness to compromise his creature comforts. Then he meets Muriel, an eccentric dog trainer too optimistic to let Macon disappear into himself. Despite Macon’s best efforts to remain insulated, Muriel up-ends his solitary, systemized life, catapulting him into the centre of a messy, beautiful love story he never imagined. A fresh and timeless tale of unexpected bliss, The Accidental Tourist showcases Tyler’s talents for making characters — and their relationships — feel both real and magical.“Incandescent, heartbreaking, exhilarating...One cannot reasonably expect fiction to be much better than this.” — The Washington Post''The Accidental Tourist'' is one of Anne Tyler's best books,... [she] shows, with a fine clarity, the mingling of misery and contentment in the daily lives of her families, reminding us how alike - and yet distinct - happy and unhappy families can be...The fates of these families hinge on long struggles between semi attentive males and semi-obsessed females. In her patient investigation of such struggles, Miss Tyler has produced a very satisfying body of fiction." - Larry McMurty, The New York TimesAnne Tyler graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University. She has published 20 novels, her debut novel being If Morning Ever Comes (1964). Her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The Accidental Tourist is Anne Tyler's best known and most loved novel. Macon Leary is a travel writer who hates both travel and anything out of the ordinary. He is grounded by loneliness and an unwillingness to compromise his creature comforts when he meets Muriel, a deliciously peculiar dog-obedience trainer who up-ends Macon's insular world--and thrusts him headlong into a remarkable engagement with life. The Accidental Tourist was made into a highly regarded film directed by Lawrence Kasdan and starring William Hurt, Kathleen Turner and Geena Davis Meet Macon Leary--a travel writer who hates both travel and strangeness. Grounded by loneliness, comfort, and a somewhat odd domestic life, Macon is about to embark on a surprising new adventure, arriving in the form of a fuzzy-haired dog obedience trainer who promises to turn his life around