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Searching for Caleb

Review

Searching for Caleb



"The fortune teller and her grandfather went to New York City on an
Amtrak train, racketing along with their identical, peaky white
faces set due north."

So begins this wonderful novel of family ties, bound and
lost.  Justine, who disgraces her family by making her
living as a fortuneteller, accompanies her proud, crotchety, and
hard-of-hearing grandfather on a quest.  Daniel Peck is
searching for his half-brother, Caleb.  The musical black
sheep of the long-established Baltimore Peck family, Caleb has been
missing since 1912.  Justine, married to her first
cousin, Duncan Peck, another black sheep who restlessly moves them
from town to town, discovers that foretelling the future and
knowing how to live in it are two different things.

SEARCHING FOR CALEB takes on a life of its own, changing Justine in
small but immutable ways.  This is a lighthearted but
ultimately profound novel about the infinite personal choices we
all make in search of our futures.  It's a compelling and
heartfelt story of families and the individuals trying to find
their places within the familial framework, divided between the
curse of destiny and the gift of free will.

   ---Reviewed by Jami Edwards

Reviewed by on January 23, 2011

Searching for Caleb
by Anne Tyler

  • Publication Date: August 27, 1996
  • Genres: Fiction
  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Ballantine Books
  • ISBN-10: 0449911748
  • ISBN-13: 9780449911747