First appearing in the pages of Seventeen Magazine, “Teenage Wasteland” has become one of Anne Tyler’s most widely beloved short stories—an affecting and masterful portrait of a life interrupted and a family come undone.
Daisy Coble had been a good mother, and so she was ashamed to find out from Donny’s teacher that he had been misbehaving. He was noisy, lazy, disruptive, and he was caught smoking. At night, she lay awake wondering where she had gone wrong, and how she could have failed as a parent. Unsure of herself, Daisy follows the advice of professionals, and hires Donny a tutor with some unusual ideas to set the boy straight. But, has the gap between them grown too wide to bridge?
A Vintage Short.
Praise for Anne Tyler:
“Tyler never falters in creating vivid characters whose weaknesses are both credible and compelling.” —The New Yorker
“To read a novel by Anne Tyler is to fall in love.” —People “There can hardly be a more American twentieth-century writer than Anne Tyler . . . Her prose is at once unpretentious and elegiac, and her imagery has staying power.” —New York Times Book Review
“Like a modern Jane Austen, Tyler creates small worlds [depicting] the intimate bonds of friendship and family.” —USA Today
“Anne Tyler is a magical writer.” —Los Angeles Times
“Every good book is really a dialogue between a writer and her readers . . . Tyler has proved that she is one of the most engaging conversationalists around.” —Washington Post “Anne Tyler has no peer. Her books just keep getting better and better.” —Anita Shreve “Tyler is an unsurpassed commentator on the subtle entanglements of relationships.” —Harper’s Bazaar
“Without Anne Tyler, American fiction would be an immeasurably bleaker place.” –Newsday
“Anne Tyler is one of our national treasures.” —Jennifer Weiner
“A novelist who knows what a proper story is . . . Not only a good and artful writer, but a wise one as well.” —Newsweek
“One cannot reasonably expect fiction to be much better than this.” —Washington Post
"Tyler Reveals, with unobtrusive mastery, the disconcerting patchwork of comedy and pathos that marks all our lives."—Wall Street Journal
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.
First appearing in the pages of Seventeen Magazine, “Teenage Wasteland” has become one of Anne Tyler’s most widely beloved short stories—an affecting and masterful portrait of a life interrupted and a family come undone.
Daisy Coble had been a good mother, and so she was ashamed to find out from Donny’s teacher that he had been misbehaving. He was noisy, lazy, disruptive, and he was caught smoking. At night, she lay awake wondering where she had gone wrong, and how she could have failed as a parent. Unsure of herself, Daisy follows the advice of professionals, and hires Donny a tutor with some unusual ideas to set the boy straight. But, has the gap between them grown too wide to bridge?
A Vintage Short.
Reviews
Praise for Anne Tyler:
“Tyler never falters in creating vivid characters whose weaknesses are both credible and compelling.” —The New Yorker
“To read a novel by Anne Tyler is to fall in love.” —People “There can hardly be a more American twentieth-century writer than Anne Tyler . . . Her prose is at once unpretentious and elegiac, and her imagery has staying power.” —New York Times Book Review
“Like a modern Jane Austen, Tyler creates small worlds [depicting] the intimate bonds of friendship and family.” —USA Today
“Anne Tyler is a magical writer.” —Los Angeles Times
“Every good book is really a dialogue between a writer and her readers . . . Tyler has proved that she is one of the most engaging conversationalists around.” —Washington Post “Anne Tyler has no peer. Her books just keep getting better and better.” —Anita Shreve “Tyler is an unsurpassed commentator on the subtle entanglements of relationships.” —Harper’s Bazaar
“Without Anne Tyler, American fiction would be an immeasurably bleaker place.” –Newsday
“Anne Tyler is one of our national treasures.” —Jennifer Weiner
“A novelist who knows what a proper story is . . . Not only a good and artful writer, but a wise one as well.” —Newsweek
“One cannot reasonably expect fiction to be much better than this.” —Washington Post
"Tyler Reveals, with unobtrusive mastery, the disconcerting patchwork of comedy and pathos that marks all our lives."—Wall Street Journal
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.
