NOAH'S COMPASS. By Anne Tyler. Knopf. 277 pages. $25.95.
Life never turned out quite the way Liam Pennywell had wanted. His first wife committed suicide, leaving him with an infant daughter. His second marriage ended in divorce, but not before two more daughters were born. He has never understood any of his daughters any better than he had his wives.
Given the way things have been going, Liam is not particularly disappointed when, at age 60, he is forced to retire from his job teaching fifth graders at a private school in Baltimore. Nor is he particularly upset; he never really liked the job. His degree is in philosophy, but somehow that career didn't happen.
Stoically, he begins to downsize his life to match his reduced circumstances.
What does really bother him is waking up in the hospital the morning after he settled down for his first night in his new, smaller apartment. His head is bandaged, and he has no recollection of what happened the night before.
Those lost memories seem to Liam to be his greatest loss of all. His ex-wife and his daughters begin to lose patience with what seems almost an obsession with regaining that missing part of his life.
Then Liam meets Eunice, a young woman whose job is to be what Liam calls the "remember" for an aging, wealthy businessman with memory problems. After Liam stumbles upon Eunice by chance, he becomes convinced that she might be able to help him.
The story that spins out after Liam gets to know Eunice is Anne Tyler at her best.
Tyler's characters are ordinary, their lives mundane, sometimes even sad. But through her wise and sympathetic telling, we come to see that their longings, joys and sorrows are all a part of life's wonderful adventure. And the characters are so real that we see people we know in them. Often, we see something of ourselves in them as well.
As always, the story is told with gentle humor, sometimes bittersweet but often just funny. And oh, so true to life.
Eunice does become something of a "remember" for Liam. But this is Anne Tyler, so expect to be surprised at just how things play out. And expect to smile.
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