A Patchwork Planet: A Novel (Random House Large Print) [Large Print] [Paperback]

Anne Tyler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 14, 1998 | Series: Random House Large Print

See the difference, read bestselling author Anne Tyler in Large Print

* About Large Print
All Random House Large Print editions are published in a 16-point typeface


In this, her fourteenth novel--and one of her most endearing--Anne Tyler tells the story of a lovable loser who's trying to get his life in order.
        Barnaby Gaitlin has been in trouble ever since adolescence. He had this habit of breaking into other people's houses. It wasn't the big loot he was after, like his teenage cohorts. It was just that he liked to read other people's mail, pore over their family photo albums, and appropriate a few of their precious mementos.
        But for eleven years now, he's been working steadily for Rent-a-Back, renting his back to old folks and shut-ins who can't move their own porch furniture or bring the Christmas tree down from the attic. At last, his life seems to be on an even keel.
        Still, the Gaitlins (of "old" Baltimore) cannot forget the price they paid for buying off Barnaby's former victims. And his ex-wife would just as soon he didn't show up ever to visit their little girl, Opal. Even the nice, steady woman (his guardian angel?) who seems to have designs on him doesn't fully trust him, it develops, when the chips are down, and it looks as though his world may fall apart again.
        There is no one like Anne Tyler, with her sharp, funny, tender perceptions about how human beings navigate on a puzzling planet, and she keeps us enthralled from start to finish in this delicious new novel.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Barnaby Gaitlin is one of Anne Tyler's most promising unpromising characters. At 30, he has yet to graduate from college, is already divorced, and is used to defeat. His mother thrives on reminding him of his adolescent delinquency and debt to his family, and even his daughter is fed up with his fecklessness. Still, attuned as he is to "the normal quota for misfortune," Barney is one of the star employees of Baltimore's Rent-a-Back, Inc., which pays him an hourly wage to help old people (and one young agoraphobe) run errands and sort out their basements and attics. Anne Tyler makes you admire most of these mothball eccentrics (though they're far from idealized) and hope that they can stave off nursing homes and death. There is, for example, "the unstoppable little black grandma whose children phoned us on an emergency basis whenever she threatened to overdo." And then there's Barnaby's new girlfriend's aunt, who will eventually accuse him of theft--"Over her forearm she carried a Yorkshire terrier, neatly folded like a waiter's napkin. 'This is my doorbell,' she said, thrusting him toward me. 'I'd never have known you were out here if not for Tatters.'" These people are wonderful creations, but their lives are more brittle than cuddly, Barnaby knows better than to think of them as friends, because they'll only die on him. Yet his job offers at least glimpses of roots and affection. Helping an old lady set up her Christmas tree (on New Year's Eve!) gives him the chance to hang a singular ornament--a snowflake "pancake-sized, slightly crumpled, snipped from gift wrap so old that the Santas were smoking cigarettes." And Barnaby himself is sharp and impatient at painful--and painfully funny--family dinners, apparently unable to keep his finger off the auto-self-destruct button every time his life improves. As much as his superb creator, he is a poet of disappointment, resignation, and minute transformation. --Kerry Fried --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

David Morse's reading in a calm, even tone reflects the unruffled attitude of the central character in this story. After getting into trouble early in his young adult life, and subsequently paying for his crime, Barney Gaitlin has achieved a level of fulfillment working with senior citizens. Unfortunately, he is perceived by most of his family and friends as a failure, not having attained a college education nor a high-paying position in a high-profile profession. In a relationship with Sophia Maynard, he tries to find a greater level of stability, partly to create a more suitable atmosphere in which to establish closer ties with his young daughter. Tyler's (The Ladder of Years, Audio Reviews, LJ 8/96) characters are real people recognizable in one's own circle of acquaintances. The bonds and tensions arising among family members are readily understandable. A definite recommendation for academic and public library fiction collections.?Catherine Swenson, Norwich Univ., VT
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 370 pages
• Publisher: Random House Large Print; Lrg edition (April 14, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375702903
• ISBN-13: 978-0375702907
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (180 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,044,753 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. This is her 17th novel. Her 11th, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. A member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, she lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tyler writes about Everyman, June 13, 2001

By 

klavierspiel "klavierspiel" (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: A Patchwork Planet (Mass Market Paperback)

Anne Tyler's gift for characterization is never more in evidence than in the narrator of this novel. Barnaby Gaitlin is the black sheep of a wealthy Baltimore family, divorced, working a menial job, struggling to maintain a semblance of respectability and good relations with his ex-wife and nine-year-old daughter. A chance encounter on a train to Philadelphia brings him together with Sophia, a calm, competent woman with whom Barnaby finds love and a chance at happiness. But life is never as simple as it seems...

As with many of Tyler's books, what seems at first to be a collection of inconsequential and even trivial events gathers a surprising cumulative force, due to the profusion of funny and moving observations about life, death, love and family along the way. The strength and emotional power of Patchwork Planet lies as much in the incidental encounters with Barnaby's clientele (he works for a service called Rent-a-Back, performing odd jobs for elderly and disabled folk) as with those nominally closer to him. By the end the reader is totally wrapped up in Barnaby's emotional odyssey, rooting for him to win through to happiness, which at the last he seems on the verge of attaining, though not in the way one might have expected.

A Patchwork Planet will speak to anyone who has felt overwhelmed by the small daily battles of existence, unloved by loved ones, and insecure about his/her place and purpose in life; in other words, just about anyone.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to Anne Tyler's world!, July 18, 2003

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Patchwork Planet (Mass Market Paperback)

No one can create quirky, beguiling, harmless misfits as well as Anne Tyler, and in A Patchwork Planet, Barnaby Gaitland steps onto the page. He's the black sheep of an affluent family, living in a rented basement studio, divorced, wanting to be a better father to his daughter, working for Rent-a-Back, a service company that does household jobs its elderly clients can no longer manage. Along comes 'an angel,' and his life seems to take a major turn for the better. But niggling in the background of this too-perfect arrangement are hints of Barnaby's dissatisfaction - and he can't quite put his finger on what's wrong with the relationship till he's accused of theft. Then his REAL angel is revealed.
Wonderful plot structure, wonderful characters, wonderful conclusion.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I am a man you can trust, December 3, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: A Patchwork Planet (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the sentence that Tyler uses to begin and end her wonderfully sensitive novel about Barnaby Gatlin, a man who considers himself a "loser". Throughout the course of the novel, we realize that Barnaby is really no such thing. He is a gentle, kind man who is still being punsihed at age 30 by his family and by himself for a series of mistakes he made as a teenager.

Barnaby is a 30-year-old divorcee with a daughter he cannot relate to, no money, and a dead-end job at Rent-a-Back, an errand-running and odd-job service for senior citizens. He is the son of wealthy philanthropists, who never let him forget that the series of break-ins and petty thefts he committed as a teenager cost them $8700 and the respect of the neighborhood. When Barnaby encounters Sofia on a train, he is captivated by her ability not to peek in a mysterious package she is supposed to deliever to a stranger. Believing her to be a guardian angel, he meets her and begins working for her aunt. He later becomes romantically involved with her. What drives this novel's plot is Sofia's aunt's accusation that Barnaby stole money from her, and Sofia's response to the accusations.

What I loved about this story was Tyler's inquiry into why society characterizes some people as losers. True, Barnaby lacks material possessions and has made mistakes in his past. However, Barnaby's gentleness with his Rent-A-Back customers and his grandparents are wonderfully philanthropic. Meanwhile, his mother, the "true" philanthropist, is a petty, unforgiving person who seems truly unhappy. Tyler's exploration into the loneliness and indignities of old age are also compassionate and insightful.

The first and last sentence relate to Barnaby's ability to trust himself, and forgive himself for the transgressions of his youth. Barnaby is an incredibly likable protagonist and Tyler's characterization of Barnaby's mother, girlfriend, and childhood best friend are both hilarious and poignant. One of the best books I have read this year.