Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler

About the book: Liam Pennywell, who set out to be a philosopher and ended up teaching fifth grade, never much liked the job at that run-down private school, so early retirement doesn’t bother him. But he is troubled by his inability to remember anything about the first night that he moved into his new and spare condominium on the outskirts of Baltimore. All he knows when he wakes up the next day in the hospital is that his head is sore and bandaged. His effort to recover the moments of his life that have been stolen from him leads him on an unexpected detour. What he needs is someone who can do the remembering for him. What he gets is . . . well, something quite different.

First line: In the sixty-first year of his life, Liam Pennywell lost his job.

My thoughts: This is my first Anne Tyler book and over all I found it....bland. The main character, Liam, was a benign, somewhat self-centered, clueless, detached, unremarkable character. I finally realized he was like this due to depression and that just saddened me. I could not understand how a man that spent so much time avoiding his own children and knew so little about his grandchild would choose to work as a zayde (grandfather) in a preschool. While the story and ultimately the end of the book left me flat the writing was beautiful. There were a couple of passages I had to reread just to hear the language.

Quote:Either she was admirably at ease anywhere or she suffered from a total lack of discrimination; Liam couldn't decide which.

Challenges:
100+ 2012
What's In A Name 5