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Clock Dance

A novel

Author Anne Tyler
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NATIONAL BEST SELLER • TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR USA TODAY • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: O Magazine, Christian Science Monitor, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Times (London)

A charming new novel of self-discovery and second chances from the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Spool of Blue Thread.


Willa Drake can count on one hand the defining moments of her life. In 1967, she is a schoolgirl coping with her mother's sudden disappearance. In 1977, she is a college coed considering a marriage proposal. In 1997, she is a young widow trying to piece her life back together. And in 2017, she yearns to be a grandmother but isn't sure she ever will be. Then, one day, Willa receives a startling phone call from a stranger. Without fully understanding why, she flies across the country to Baltimore to look after a young woman she's never met, her nine-year-old daughter, and their dog, Airplane. This impulsive decision will lead Willa into uncharted territory--surrounded by eccentric neighbors who treat each other like family, she finds solace and fulfillment in unexpected places. A bewitching novel of hope and transformation, Clock Dance gives us Anne Tyler at the height of her powers.

2017

The phone call came on a Tuesday afternoon in mid-July. Willa happened to be sorting her headbands. She had laid them out across the bed in clumps of different colors, and now she was pressing them flat with her fingers and aligning them in the compartments of a fabric-covered storage box she’d bought especially for the purpose. Then all at once, ring!

She crossed to the phone and checked the caller ID: a Baltimore area code. Sean had a Baltimore area code. This wasn’t Sean’s number, though, so of course a little claw of anxiety clutched her chest. She lifted the receiver and said, “Hello?”

“Mrs. MacIntyre?” a woman asked.

Willa had not been Mrs. MacIntyre in over a decade, but she said, “Yes?”

“You don’t know me,” the woman said. (Not a reassuring beginning.) She had a flat-toned, carrying voice—an overweight voice, Willa thought—and a Baltimore accent that turned “know me” into “Naomi,” very nearly. “My name is Callie Montgomery,” she said. “I’m a neighbor of Denise’s.” 

“Denise?” 

“Denise, your daughter-in-law.” 

Willa didn’t have any daughters-in-law, sad to say. However, Sean used to live with a Denise, so she went along with it. “Oh, yes,” she said. 

“And yesterday, she got shot.” 

“She what?” 

“Got shot in the leg.” 

“Who did that?” 

“Now, that I couldn’t tell you,” Callie said. She let out a breath of air that Willa mistook at first for laughter, till she realized Callie must be smoking. She had forgotten those whooshing pauses that happened during phone conversations with smokers. “It was just random, I guess,” Callie said. “You know.” 

“Ah.” 

“So off she goes in the ambulance and out of the goodness of my heart I take her daughter back to my house, even though I don’t know the kid from Adam, to tell the truth. I hardly even know Denise! I just moved here last Thanksgiving when I left my sorry excuse for a husband and had to rent a place in a hurry. Well, that’s a whole nother story which wouldn’t interest you, I don’t suppose, but anyhow, I figured I’d be stuck with Cheryl for just a couple of hours, right? Since a bullet in the leg didn’t sound all that serious. But then lo and behold, Denise had to have an operation, so a couple of hours turns into overnight and then this morning she calls and tells me they’re keeping her in the hospital for who-knows-how-much-longer.” 

“Oh, dear . . .” 

“And I’m a working woman! I work at the PNC Bank! I was already dressed in my outfit when she called. Besides which, I am not used to dealing with children. This has been just about the longest day of my life, I tell you.”

Willa had known that Denise was a single mother, although she’d forgotten how old the child was and she had only a vague recollection that the father was “long gone,” whatever that was supposed to mean. Helplessly, she said, “Well . . . that does sound like a problem.”

“Plus also there is Airplane who I think I might be allergic to.”

“Excuse me?”

“So I go over to Denise’s house and check the numbers on the list above her phone—doctors and veterinarian and whatnot—thinking I will call Sean if I have to although everybody knows Denise wouldn’t even let him back in the house that time to pack his things, and what do I see but where she’s written ‘Sean’s mom’ so I say to myself, ‘Okay, I’m just going to call Sean’s mom and ask her to come get her grandchild.’ ”

Willa couldn’t imagine why her number would be on Denise’s phone list. She said, “Actually—”

“What state is this, anyhow?”

“Sorry?”

“What state is area code five-two-oh?”

“It’s Arizona,” Willa said.

“So, do you think you could find yourself a flight that gets in this evening? I mean, it must be afternoon for you still, right? And I am losing my mind here, I tell you. I cannot wait to set eyes on you. Me and Cheryl and Airplane all three—we’ll have our noses pressed to the window watching out for you.”

Willa said, “Actually, I’m not . . .”

But this time she stopped speaking on her own, and there was a little pause. Then Callie let out another whoosh of smoke and said, “I live two doors down from Denise. Three fourteen Dorcas Road.” 

“Three fourteen,” Willa said faintly. 

“You’ve got my number on your phone now, right? Let me know when you find out what time you’re getting in.” 

“Wait!” Willa said. 

But Callie had hung up by then.
 
Of course Willa wouldn’t go. That would be crazy. She would have to call Callie back and confess she was not the child’s grandmother. But first she spent an enjoyable moment pretending she might really do this. 

The truth was that lately, she had not had quite enough happening in her life. She and her husband had moved this past fall to a golfing community outside of Tucson. (Peter was passionate about golf. Willa didn’t even know how to play.) She had had to leave behind an ESL teaching job that she loved, and she was hoping to find another one, but she hadn’t exactly looked into that yet. She seemed to be sort of paralyzed, in fact. And Peter was out for hours every day with his golf chums, and her sons lived far away—Sean managing the Towson, Maryland, branch of Sports Infinity, Ian doing something environmental in the Sierra Nevada mountains—and both of her parents were dead and she rarely laid eyes on her sister. She didn’t even have any woman friends here, not close ones. 

What would a person pack, she wondered, if this person were to contemplate making a trip to Baltimore? It would certainly not be a formal place. She tried to remember whether that A-line dress she liked to travel in was back from the cleaners yet. She went to her closet to check.

By the time her husband returned from his game, she had a seat on the first available flight the next day.
 

“Anne Tyler is one of this country’s great artists . . . She has lost none of the inspired grace of her prose, nor her sad, frank humor, nor her limitless sympathy for women who ask for little and get less . . . Beautiful, understated, humane.” USA Today

“Tyler writes with enormous warmth about all her characters.” Baltimore Sun

“Tyler’s stirring story celebrates the joys of self-discovery and the essential truth that family is ours to define.” People
 
“Anne Tyler is the most dependably rewarding novelist now at work in our country.” Wall Street Journal

“A psychologically astute study of an intelligent, curious woman . . . A triumph.” Boston Globe

"Feels as comforting as coming home.” Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Clock Dance pulls you right in and keeps on ticking . . . Tyler’s novels reassure us that the possibilities for meaningful connection—which so often seem lost in our hectic world—are still out there.” Newsday

“A gorgeous gem of a novel about family and second chances.” Bustle
 
“What’s so amazing about Tyler’s novels is the way she makes ordinary people and ordinary things so fascinating . . . In Tyler’s hands, life’s mundane activities feel vital . . . Revelatory . . . Unwrapping the story is a delight.” Chicago Tribune
 
“Full of wisdom about relationships, delivered in gorgeous language and with considerable charm.” San Francisco Chronicle

“Delightfully zany . . . Charming . . . Tender." Washington Post

“She is one of our greatest living fiction writers and if I were in charge, she’d have a Nobel by now.” The Observer (UK)
 
Clock Dance is Anne Tyler at her best . . . An entertaining, heartwarming story about second chances and the real meaning of family . . . Full of the sorts of eccentric yet totally believable characters that Anne Tyler is a genius at creating . . . Captivating . . . A delight.” Greensboro News & Record (NC)

“If you want to understand the everyday life of Americans, read Anne Tyler . . . There is no one better at taking the ordinary person—the one we don’t even notice in the supermarket queue—and showing us what lies beneath . . . Clock Dance is a marvelous frog-leap of a book . . . Sequel please!” The Times (UK)

“A joy to read . . . These characters come to life off the page.” Baltimore Magazine
 
“Anne Tyler's Baltimore has become a sort of urban Yoknapatawpha.” —Charles McGrath, New York Times
 
“If Anne Tyler isn’t the best writer in the world, who is?" —Jane Garvey, Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 4

“Tenderly devastating . . . Affecting . . . A quiet but sharply feminist statement.” Entertainment Weekly

“Anne Tyler is one of America’s very best living novelists and one of the world’s most loved . . . Her stories about family life—beautifully written, forensically insightful, sometimes laugh out loud funny—are cherished by all ages . . . She sheds light on the secret bits of yourself, the parts no one knows about, and her skill is writing compassionately about our so-called ordinary lives with an apparent effortlessness that conceals great art.” The Times Magazine (UK)

“In Tyler’s effortless, uncluttered prose, the novel beautifully explores an older woman’s search for meaning and agency in her life.”Christian Science Monitor
 
Clock Dance, rife with the hurts and joys of living, is far more than merely very good . . . For readers Anne Tyler is a life force; for writers she is simply the best.” Irish Times

“A smart, touching exploration of altruism and the nature of a meaningful life.”Daily Mail (UK)

“Stellar . . . A bittersweet, hope-filled look at two quirky families that have broken apart and are trying to find their way back to one another.” Publishers Weekly (starred, boxed)

“Brilliant, charming, and book-club-ready . . . Tyler’s bedazzling yet fathoms-deep feel-good novel is wrought with nimble humor, intricate understanding of emotions and family, place and community—and bounteous pleasure in quirkiness, discovery, and renewal.” Booklist (starred)

Clock Dance brims with the qualities that have brought Tyler legions of fans and high critical acclaim. Characters pulse with lifelikeness. The tone flickers between humorous relish and sardonic shrewdness. Dialogue crackles with authenticity . . . Warmly appealing.” The Sunday Times (UK)

“Tyler does not disappoint. Her characters are distinctly drawn and their stories layered . . . The result is a compelling look at the need for relevance, being offered a second chance, and deciding whether to take it. Highly recommended.” Library Journal, (starred)
 
“Written with brilliantly deceptive ease . . . So absorbing . . . Tyler’s Baltimore is universal, like Trollope’s Barchester, or Flaubert’s Normandy . . . Even though she performs narrative cartwheels that would lead other novelists to be praised as experimental, she does it with such ease that it seems closer to life than to art.” The Mail on Sunday (UK)
 
“Tyler’s characteristic warmth and affection for her characters are engaging as ever.” Kirkus Reviews

“Tyler’s novels are as generous as they are perceptive . . . She has a keen eye and an alert ear, sympathy for her characters, an awareness of both life’s comedy and its tragedy.” The Scotsman
 
“Perfectly executed . . . Precise, unpretentious, and centred on credible characters to whom Tyler never condescends.” The Spectator (UK)
 
“Beautifully observed . . . Anne Tyler is renowned for her wry humour, great ear for dialogue, and microscopic observations of human interactions. Clock Dance is no exception.” Sunday Express (UK)
© Diana Walker
ANNE TYLER was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the author of more than twenty novels. Her twentieth novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2015. Her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

annetyler.com View titles by Anne Tyler

About

NATIONAL BEST SELLER • TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR USA TODAY • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: O Magazine, Christian Science Monitor, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Times (London)

A charming new novel of self-discovery and second chances from the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Spool of Blue Thread.


Willa Drake can count on one hand the defining moments of her life. In 1967, she is a schoolgirl coping with her mother's sudden disappearance. In 1977, she is a college coed considering a marriage proposal. In 1997, she is a young widow trying to piece her life back together. And in 2017, she yearns to be a grandmother but isn't sure she ever will be. Then, one day, Willa receives a startling phone call from a stranger. Without fully understanding why, she flies across the country to Baltimore to look after a young woman she's never met, her nine-year-old daughter, and their dog, Airplane. This impulsive decision will lead Willa into uncharted territory--surrounded by eccentric neighbors who treat each other like family, she finds solace and fulfillment in unexpected places. A bewitching novel of hope and transformation, Clock Dance gives us Anne Tyler at the height of her powers.

Excerpt

2017

The phone call came on a Tuesday afternoon in mid-July. Willa happened to be sorting her headbands. She had laid them out across the bed in clumps of different colors, and now she was pressing them flat with her fingers and aligning them in the compartments of a fabric-covered storage box she’d bought especially for the purpose. Then all at once, ring!

She crossed to the phone and checked the caller ID: a Baltimore area code. Sean had a Baltimore area code. This wasn’t Sean’s number, though, so of course a little claw of anxiety clutched her chest. She lifted the receiver and said, “Hello?”

“Mrs. MacIntyre?” a woman asked.

Willa had not been Mrs. MacIntyre in over a decade, but she said, “Yes?”

“You don’t know me,” the woman said. (Not a reassuring beginning.) She had a flat-toned, carrying voice—an overweight voice, Willa thought—and a Baltimore accent that turned “know me” into “Naomi,” very nearly. “My name is Callie Montgomery,” she said. “I’m a neighbor of Denise’s.” 

“Denise?” 

“Denise, your daughter-in-law.” 

Willa didn’t have any daughters-in-law, sad to say. However, Sean used to live with a Denise, so she went along with it. “Oh, yes,” she said. 

“And yesterday, she got shot.” 

“She what?” 

“Got shot in the leg.” 

“Who did that?” 

“Now, that I couldn’t tell you,” Callie said. She let out a breath of air that Willa mistook at first for laughter, till she realized Callie must be smoking. She had forgotten those whooshing pauses that happened during phone conversations with smokers. “It was just random, I guess,” Callie said. “You know.” 

“Ah.” 

“So off she goes in the ambulance and out of the goodness of my heart I take her daughter back to my house, even though I don’t know the kid from Adam, to tell the truth. I hardly even know Denise! I just moved here last Thanksgiving when I left my sorry excuse for a husband and had to rent a place in a hurry. Well, that’s a whole nother story which wouldn’t interest you, I don’t suppose, but anyhow, I figured I’d be stuck with Cheryl for just a couple of hours, right? Since a bullet in the leg didn’t sound all that serious. But then lo and behold, Denise had to have an operation, so a couple of hours turns into overnight and then this morning she calls and tells me they’re keeping her in the hospital for who-knows-how-much-longer.” 

“Oh, dear . . .” 

“And I’m a working woman! I work at the PNC Bank! I was already dressed in my outfit when she called. Besides which, I am not used to dealing with children. This has been just about the longest day of my life, I tell you.”

Willa had known that Denise was a single mother, although she’d forgotten how old the child was and she had only a vague recollection that the father was “long gone,” whatever that was supposed to mean. Helplessly, she said, “Well . . . that does sound like a problem.”

“Plus also there is Airplane who I think I might be allergic to.”

“Excuse me?”

“So I go over to Denise’s house and check the numbers on the list above her phone—doctors and veterinarian and whatnot—thinking I will call Sean if I have to although everybody knows Denise wouldn’t even let him back in the house that time to pack his things, and what do I see but where she’s written ‘Sean’s mom’ so I say to myself, ‘Okay, I’m just going to call Sean’s mom and ask her to come get her grandchild.’ ”

Willa couldn’t imagine why her number would be on Denise’s phone list. She said, “Actually—”

“What state is this, anyhow?”

“Sorry?”

“What state is area code five-two-oh?”

“It’s Arizona,” Willa said.

“So, do you think you could find yourself a flight that gets in this evening? I mean, it must be afternoon for you still, right? And I am losing my mind here, I tell you. I cannot wait to set eyes on you. Me and Cheryl and Airplane all three—we’ll have our noses pressed to the window watching out for you.”

Willa said, “Actually, I’m not . . .”

But this time she stopped speaking on her own, and there was a little pause. Then Callie let out another whoosh of smoke and said, “I live two doors down from Denise. Three fourteen Dorcas Road.” 

“Three fourteen,” Willa said faintly. 

“You’ve got my number on your phone now, right? Let me know when you find out what time you’re getting in.” 

“Wait!” Willa said. 

But Callie had hung up by then.
 
Of course Willa wouldn’t go. That would be crazy. She would have to call Callie back and confess she was not the child’s grandmother. But first she spent an enjoyable moment pretending she might really do this. 

The truth was that lately, she had not had quite enough happening in her life. She and her husband had moved this past fall to a golfing community outside of Tucson. (Peter was passionate about golf. Willa didn’t even know how to play.) She had had to leave behind an ESL teaching job that she loved, and she was hoping to find another one, but she hadn’t exactly looked into that yet. She seemed to be sort of paralyzed, in fact. And Peter was out for hours every day with his golf chums, and her sons lived far away—Sean managing the Towson, Maryland, branch of Sports Infinity, Ian doing something environmental in the Sierra Nevada mountains—and both of her parents were dead and she rarely laid eyes on her sister. She didn’t even have any woman friends here, not close ones. 

What would a person pack, she wondered, if this person were to contemplate making a trip to Baltimore? It would certainly not be a formal place. She tried to remember whether that A-line dress she liked to travel in was back from the cleaners yet. She went to her closet to check.

By the time her husband returned from his game, she had a seat on the first available flight the next day.
 

Reviews

“Anne Tyler is one of this country’s great artists . . . She has lost none of the inspired grace of her prose, nor her sad, frank humor, nor her limitless sympathy for women who ask for little and get less . . . Beautiful, understated, humane.” USA Today

“Tyler writes with enormous warmth about all her characters.” Baltimore Sun

“Tyler’s stirring story celebrates the joys of self-discovery and the essential truth that family is ours to define.” People
 
“Anne Tyler is the most dependably rewarding novelist now at work in our country.” Wall Street Journal

“A psychologically astute study of an intelligent, curious woman . . . A triumph.” Boston Globe

"Feels as comforting as coming home.” Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Clock Dance pulls you right in and keeps on ticking . . . Tyler’s novels reassure us that the possibilities for meaningful connection—which so often seem lost in our hectic world—are still out there.” Newsday

“A gorgeous gem of a novel about family and second chances.” Bustle
 
“What’s so amazing about Tyler’s novels is the way she makes ordinary people and ordinary things so fascinating . . . In Tyler’s hands, life’s mundane activities feel vital . . . Revelatory . . . Unwrapping the story is a delight.” Chicago Tribune
 
“Full of wisdom about relationships, delivered in gorgeous language and with considerable charm.” San Francisco Chronicle

“Delightfully zany . . . Charming . . . Tender." Washington Post

“She is one of our greatest living fiction writers and if I were in charge, she’d have a Nobel by now.” The Observer (UK)
 
Clock Dance is Anne Tyler at her best . . . An entertaining, heartwarming story about second chances and the real meaning of family . . . Full of the sorts of eccentric yet totally believable characters that Anne Tyler is a genius at creating . . . Captivating . . . A delight.” Greensboro News & Record (NC)

“If you want to understand the everyday life of Americans, read Anne Tyler . . . There is no one better at taking the ordinary person—the one we don’t even notice in the supermarket queue—and showing us what lies beneath . . . Clock Dance is a marvelous frog-leap of a book . . . Sequel please!” The Times (UK)

“A joy to read . . . These characters come to life off the page.” Baltimore Magazine
 
“Anne Tyler's Baltimore has become a sort of urban Yoknapatawpha.” —Charles McGrath, New York Times
 
“If Anne Tyler isn’t the best writer in the world, who is?" —Jane Garvey, Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 4

“Tenderly devastating . . . Affecting . . . A quiet but sharply feminist statement.” Entertainment Weekly

“Anne Tyler is one of America’s very best living novelists and one of the world’s most loved . . . Her stories about family life—beautifully written, forensically insightful, sometimes laugh out loud funny—are cherished by all ages . . . She sheds light on the secret bits of yourself, the parts no one knows about, and her skill is writing compassionately about our so-called ordinary lives with an apparent effortlessness that conceals great art.” The Times Magazine (UK)

“In Tyler’s effortless, uncluttered prose, the novel beautifully explores an older woman’s search for meaning and agency in her life.”Christian Science Monitor
 
Clock Dance, rife with the hurts and joys of living, is far more than merely very good . . . For readers Anne Tyler is a life force; for writers she is simply the best.” Irish Times

“A smart, touching exploration of altruism and the nature of a meaningful life.”Daily Mail (UK)

“Stellar . . . A bittersweet, hope-filled look at two quirky families that have broken apart and are trying to find their way back to one another.” Publishers Weekly (starred, boxed)

“Brilliant, charming, and book-club-ready . . . Tyler’s bedazzling yet fathoms-deep feel-good novel is wrought with nimble humor, intricate understanding of emotions and family, place and community—and bounteous pleasure in quirkiness, discovery, and renewal.” Booklist (starred)

Clock Dance brims with the qualities that have brought Tyler legions of fans and high critical acclaim. Characters pulse with lifelikeness. The tone flickers between humorous relish and sardonic shrewdness. Dialogue crackles with authenticity . . . Warmly appealing.” The Sunday Times (UK)

“Tyler does not disappoint. Her characters are distinctly drawn and their stories layered . . . The result is a compelling look at the need for relevance, being offered a second chance, and deciding whether to take it. Highly recommended.” Library Journal, (starred)
 
“Written with brilliantly deceptive ease . . . So absorbing . . . Tyler’s Baltimore is universal, like Trollope’s Barchester, or Flaubert’s Normandy . . . Even though she performs narrative cartwheels that would lead other novelists to be praised as experimental, she does it with such ease that it seems closer to life than to art.” The Mail on Sunday (UK)
 
“Tyler’s characteristic warmth and affection for her characters are engaging as ever.” Kirkus Reviews

“Tyler’s novels are as generous as they are perceptive . . . She has a keen eye and an alert ear, sympathy for her characters, an awareness of both life’s comedy and its tragedy.” The Scotsman
 
“Perfectly executed . . . Precise, unpretentious, and centred on credible characters to whom Tyler never condescends.” The Spectator (UK)
 
“Beautifully observed . . . Anne Tyler is renowned for her wry humour, great ear for dialogue, and microscopic observations of human interactions. Clock Dance is no exception.” Sunday Express (UK)

Author

© Diana Walker
ANNE TYLER was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the author of more than twenty novels. Her twentieth novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2015. Her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

annetyler.com View titles by Anne Tyler