The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler

A hasty wartime romance shapes decades of family life

Good Condition - with scuffed covers, corner creases, rubbed edges and creasing beside the spine. Small round sticker on the spine.

When Pauline walks into Michael's mother's Baltimore grocery store, the attraction seems immediate and undeniable. Young and caught up in the fervour surrounding the Second World War, they marry before discovering how differently they approach almost everything. Michael values order and caution; Pauline moves through life with restless spontaneity. As the years pass, their attempts to build a household expose tensions that affection alone cannot resolve, while their children inherit the consequences of decisions made long before. Anne Tyler follows the family across changing American decades, finding humour and sorrow in ordinary domestic encounters. This perceptive novel considers the distance between a promising beginning and a workable partnership, and the enduring influence of an imperfect marriage.