Gail Baines gets some bad news on the eve of her daughter’s wedding. Then her ex-husband shows up on her doorstep with an abandoned housecat and makes himself at home.
It’s a perfect scenario for an Anne Tyler novel, her twenty-fifth. And though Three Days in June is not her best, it’s nice to know that even in her eighties, America’s most engaging storyteller has not lost her touch.
Just as Gail is adjusting to her new situation, a dark cloud rises over the approaching nuptials. It causes the sixtyish mother to reflect on her own marriage and a secret she has kept from her daughter.
This is a short book, easily readable in one sitting, which keeps it from being distinctive. Two thirds is devoted mostly to the characters and the undertones of tension between the betrothed families. We don’t get the endearing quirkiness common to Tyler’s characters. Still, we manage to fall in love with some of them, especially the cat. The outcome is predictable but satisfying.
Anne Tyler retains an unmatched ability to build a story from life’s most ordinary moments and make them seem special—because they are often the most important.
