The Beginner's Goodbye

When Dorothy came back from the dead, it seemed to Aaron that some people simply didn’t notice.

The accident that killed Dorothy – involving an oak tree, a sun porch and some elusive biscuits – leaves Aaron bereft and the house a wreck.

A terrific writer... She's changed my perception on life'

Deeply rewarding novel about grief and hope, infused with gentle humour

A near flawless novel of love and loss ... exquisitely poignant but unsentimental

She's a master storyteller and inventor of character

This novel's great achievement is to capture the tensions and subtleties of a married life cut short… I read it virtually in one sitting, but that's a fairly common experience with Anne Tyler books… I didn't want it to end. Which is also a fairly common Tyler thing

Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her bestselling novels include Breathing Lessons , The Accidental Tourist , Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant , Ladder of Years , Back When We Were Grown-ups , Digging to America , A Spool of Blue Thread, Clock Dance, Redhead by the Side of the Road and French Braid.

In 1989 she won the Pulitzer Prize; in 1994 she was nominated by Roddy Doyle and Nick Hornby as 'the greatest novelist writing in English'; and in 2012 she received the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence. In 2015 A Spool of Blue Thread was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction and the Booker Prize; and in 2020 Redhead by the Side of the Road was longlisted for the Booker Prize.