French Braid by Anne Tyler

Amy   

fiction

French Braid is a glimpse into the lives of several generations of one family.

I hesitate to call this novel a family drama due to the lack of anything dramatic. Frankly, I found it pretty boring…especially, the first 40 minutes of the audiobook which was just trivial dialogue between a college-aged dating couple. At the end of that chapter, for perfectly fine but not overly interesting reasons, the girl decides she doesn’t want to date him anymore. I thought, “Well, that’s 40 minutes I’ll never get back.” The only thing those 40 minutes served to do was introduce a couple members of the family. But we didn’t really learn anything about them in this chapter other than the fact that the cousins weren’t close.

The rest of the book wasn’t quite as boring as the first 40 minutes but it also wasn’t overly engaging. The characters were realistic as were their interactions. They led normal family lives. I couldn’t discern any compelling storyline other than to find out (1) where the cousins from the beginning section fit into the family and (2) why the son of the main family was provoked into an unusual mood during a vacation early in the book. 

The whole novel is basically a collection of short stories, each focusing on a few family members at different points in time. Yes, a few of the family members were a bit bizarre but no one was extraordinarily so.  I think French Braid is about family, change, and acceptance. The reader never got to know all the family members well enough to keep straight who belonged to which branch of the family tree. Even the characters themselves couldn't keep it straight. 

This is the second book I’ve read by Anne Tyler and I was also pretty bored with that one, The Accidental Tourist. Rereading my review for that book, this same statement about Macon in The Accidental Tourist applies to Robin in French Braid: "he couldn't seem to summon the emotion and drive necessary to make any changes". I know she is a beloved author but I guess she's just not for me. She seems to love writing about undriven men with no sense of self-advocacy. I prefer to read stories that take me out of the boredom of reality whereas Tyler seems to love writing about the mundane people in the world. I will say that the reason for French Braid's title is finally revealed at the 96% mark and it made me smile. It's a good title for this book.

This was the first book I've read that actually had a good-sized section about living through the COVID-19 pandemic and I thought it was well done. This was my favorite section in French Braid. 

The audiobook narrator, Kimberly Farr, was immediately recognizable to me from another audiobook I heard her narrate recently. And, as with the other book, I had to increase the listening speed because she speaks too slowly. Other than that, her voice acting and vocal repertoire were right for this novel. I especially loved that she sang a few times and I always love when narrators do that! She had a nice singing voice. I’ll give her an A-.