A Patchwork Planet (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

by Anne Tyler (Author)

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: 304 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (February 22, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449003981
• ISBN-13: 978-0449003985
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (175 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #349,276 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 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 (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book read last year, December 21, 1999

By	karin Staadegaard (Nijmegen, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews

I have read most of Anne tyler's books and I must say this is one of the better ones although I love all of her books. Barnaby, the maincharacter, takes you more or less by the hand and leads you through part of his life in such a realistic way that you can't put the book down. Some passages are very touching, others really funny, and all is very real. I got part in this story and really wanted Barnaby to 'win'. His ways are very convincing. The whole story is very convincing! The way Anne Tyler presents her characters in this book is so realistic, so recognizable. You want the book to go on and on after it stops. I can't wait for Anne Tyler's next!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tyler touches something deep within me (once again), March 12, 1999

By	[e-mail] (Baltimore, Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Patchwork Planet (Hardcover)

I've had this book since it came out, but, oddly enough, just got around to reading it. I'm so thankful that I did. Anne Tyler has that magical gift of being able to make me feel something every time I read her work. Barnaby is a person, in a long line of people she has created, who has such extraordinary things to say, and such a simply truthful way of saying them. I always find Tyler's characters to be incredibly engaging - likeable in an honest, wrinkled sort of way. And I always find myself deeply touched by their lives, and the oh so human way they live them. Barnaby, of course, is no exception. He's struggling with something we all struggle with - what gives our lives meaning? And I think Tyler has answered that question beautifully.