On his homeward stretch this morning, he made his usual mistake of imagining for a second that a certain fire hydrant, faded to the pinkish color of a clay flowerpot, was a child or a very short grown-up. There was something about the rounded top of it, emerging bit by bit as he descended a slope toward the intersection. Why! He always thought to himself. What was that little redhead doing by the side of the road? Because even though he knew by now that it was only a hydrant, still, for one fleeting instant he had the same delusion all over again, every single morning.
More than anything, Redhead by the Side of the Road is just this perfect little character study: Anne Tyler introduces us to someone, puts a few pressures on him, and we watch how he reacts. The prose is easy and accessible, but nothing feels lightweight; this is a masterclass in how a novelist can reveal the human heart with scenes filled with wit and truth and relatability. If I had a complaint, it’s that I wanted to spend more time in this world — the book only takes a couple of hours to read — but I can’t deny that it ultimately makes for a complete experience; a perfect little gem of a read.
“Some kids are raised in a mess and they say, ‘When I’m on my own, I’ll be neater than God.’ Others are raised in a mess and they say, ‘Life is a mess, looks like, and that’s just the way it is.’ It’s got nothing to do with their upbringing.”
Micah Mortimer — forty-four on his next birthday — has settled into the routines of his life: Working as the superintendent (and living rent-free in the basement of) a small apartment building and also as an on-call IT guy; fussily sticking to a set rota of household chores and visits with his “lady friend”, Cass; jogging at the same time every morning (in cut off jeans), followed by breakfast and coffee and the running of a stick vacuum under his chair to pick up errant toast crumbs; slapping a magnetic “Hermit Guy” sign on the roof of his Kia if he needs to drive (always with a mind to impressing his imaginary Traffic Gods) to see a client. And as far as he can tell, it’s a happy life. But when Cass is suddenly facing eviction from her apartment (which ultimately forces Micah to consider the future) and a teenaged boy shows up on his doorstep wondering if Micah could be his real father (forcing Micah to review his past), Micah is suddenly forced to really evaluate how he is living in the present: is this a life or just a set of routines he has stumbled into?
Sometimes when he was dealing with people, he felt like he was operating one of those claw machines on a boardwalk, those shovel things where you tried to scoop up a prize but the controls were too unwieldy and you worked at too great a remove.
At first, when Micah isn’t engaging in any kind of self-reflection (acting as oblivious to the outside world as someone who could, daily, mistake a fire hydrant for a redheaded person on the side of the road), he’s a little hard to relate to. But about halfway through, there’s a big dinner party with Micah’s four older sisters, their spouses, kids, and grandkids, and as various characters tease Micah about his quirks and oddness — and as he accepts it all with good humour and grace — I suddenly found myself rooting for him. And when, at the end, he has an epiphany of sorts, I was absolutely crushed.
The only place I went wrong was expecting things to be perfect...I’m a roomful of broken hearts.
