The Beginner's Goodbye

A new novel by Anne Tyler is always a reason to celebrate. As always, her exploration of everyday tragedy and the way people learn to cope with loss is, at times, comic, wise, and heartbreaking. Narrator Kirby Heyborne inhabits the forlorn Aaron and his dead wife, Dorothy, with a searing depiction of middle-class America and the drama of how a single random act can change everything. Heyborne's pacing of the dialogue between the main characters is realistic and emotionally engaging. The pain of Aaron's grief penetrates Heyborne's performance. The novel imparts the wisdom we all gain through loss, and Heyborne's narration resonates with the listener long after the last words are spoken. R.O. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Starred review from January 30, 2012
In Tyler’s elegant 19th novel, Aaron is an editor at a vanity press with a crippled right arm and leg who thinks of himself as “unluckier but no unhappier” than anyone else. He meets Dorothy, a brisk, no nonsense doctor, while editing a medical tome, and they fall in love, marry, and muddle along until Dorothy dies in an accident that nearly destroys their home. Aaron moves in with his overprotective sister and begins seeing Dorothy’s ghost, spectral appearances that make him realize just how many fissures there were in their marriage. Tyler’s gentle style focuses on the details of daily life, and how the little things, both beautiful and ugly, contribute to the bigger picture. Tyler (Breathing Lessons, awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988) portrays complex, difficult, loving individuals struggling to co-exist and find happiness together. This is no gothic ghost story nor chronicle of a man unraveling in his grief, but rather an uplifting tale of love and forgiveness. By the end of this wonderful book, you’ve lived the lives and loves of these characters in the best possible way. Agent: Jesseca Salky, Hannigan Salky Getzler. 150,000-copy announced first printing.

May 28, 2012
In Tyler’s latest novel, a physically disabled man named Aaron is devastated when his wife, Dorothy, is killed in a freak accident. As he tries to pick up the pieces of his life, Dorothy begins to appear to him from beyond the grave. Narrator Kirby Heyborne turns in a workmanlike performance in this compelling audio edition. Heyborne is sensitive and believable in his rendition of quirky, polite, and antisocial Aaron, who struggles to understand how to function after his wife’s death, while also facing painful truths about the ups and downs of his marriage. Heyborne’s nuanced narration captures the protagonist’s emotional growth, his grief, and the ways he is able to better understand himself and his needs. A Knopf hardcover.