Three Days in June
Curling up in stripy pajamas and polka dot socks to finish the Anne Tyler book that you started on the plane home the other day and soaking in the simple (but not, like, “simple” as in one-dimensional) stories of normal people who Tyler has made up (of course…because it’s fiction) but nonetheless bear some sort of resemblance to maybe you or maybe someone you know — I mean, it’s a snapshot of “humanity,” after all — and feeling a little oomph of goodness because people are ultimately, overall good (#rosetintedglasses?) … it’s what you do.
Picking this one, in particular, out of the pile of books that have not been read because it was passed on to you by Ashley by way of Becky, who read it in one day on vacation a while back, and the idea that your friends have read the same book in close succession (whose crumbs were in page 129?) brings you joy … it’s what you do.
And then when waking way too early the morning after finishing Three Days in June (that would be this morning), you do a deep dive on Anne Tyler because you totally had it in your head that she had died (SHE HAS NOT!!! FOR THE RECORD! My bad!), and then you read her Wikipedia page, which is pretty long btw (Anne Tyler *is* a Pulitzer winner, after all), and learn that some critics think her novels are too formulaic, which maybe they are — not that I’ve read all 25 of them — but you have to say that reading Three Days in June, which is about Gail and her ex-husband Max on the day leading up to their only daughter’s wedding and then the day of and the day after, merely illuminates that everyone’s lives are comprised of many mundane days punctuated with a few highlight-y ones and that sometimes (particularly in “sometimes” that feel strange and fraught), Anne Tyler’s books are a balm. And then you write this because it’s what you do.
originally published on instagram