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Reading an Anne Tyler book is like taking a very long walk on a deserted, but
beautiful tropical beach...there is so much to look at and take in, but there is not a lot
going on. You don't read Tyler for nail biting suspense or for complex plot twists, you
read Tyler because she draws you in with her unforgettable characters. As their thoughts
and memories spin around in your head, you stop looking for the obvious action, and
concentrate on what is going on just beneath the surface.
Surprisingly, in the first few pages of EARTHLY POSSESSIONS (now an HBO movie starring
Susan Sarandon and Stephen Dorff) the plot seems to overrun the characters. In the first
scene, a kidnapping occurs. While waiting in line at the bank, Charlotte Emory is taken
hostage by a robber. After stealing 200 dollars in ones, the scruffy young man takes
Charlotte by the throat and pulls her out of the bank. Using his gun to threaten her, he
forces her to run with him.
Charlotte went to the bank that day to withdraw money so she could leave her husband. This
is not the first time she has thought about leaving her husband --- it's been a daily
mantra that began soon after her honeymoon. But there's more to Charlotte's problem than
wanting to leave --- it's that she never does. Born and raised in small town Clarion,
Maryland, Charlotte has always dreamed of walking away --- first, from her obese mother
and embittered and beaten down father, and then from her husband and family.
When Jake takes her hostage, the two head south, bound together by a strange twist of fate
and his gun. Charlotte seems to take it all in stride, just as she has everything else in
her life. It's not that she goes with him willingly, but in a strange way the long road
trip with Jake is her only way out of Clarion, and this is not entirely a bad thing.
Using the paltry 200 dollars he stole and whatever he can find in Charlotte's wallet, the
two make their way down south, picking up Jake's pregnant girlfriend on the way to their
final destination, Florida. The trip just gets more and more complicated, but Charlotte
retreats in her head and we see what brought her to this point in the first place.
During the trip, Charlotte recalls going through the motions of her daily life, raising
children, caring for her aging mother, and dealing with her reserved and withdrawn
husband. But it seems that every moment of her life has been shadowed by Charlotte's
favorite daydream --- getting rid of all her earthly possessions and walking away. She
loves her children, and her husband, to an extent, but she feels as if they are all
strangers, and she isn't one of them.
This sense of not belonging started when Charlotte was born. When the nurses placed her,
clean and swaddled, in her mother's arms, her mother thought they must have switched
babies. This surely wasn't hers. When Charlotte was a child she told her that somewhere in
the world her real child was being raised by strangers. But she assured Charlotte that she
still loved her. Love, however, is not the issue --- belonging is the real issue and
that's what Charlotte struggles with.
The trip with Jake gives Charlotte a lot of time to think and to feel...possibly for the
first time in her life. By the end of it, Charlotte makes a decision and walks away...from
what? You'll have to read the novel to find out. Anne Tyler's characters will not
disappoint you.
--- Reviewed by Dana Schwartz
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