Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler and The Fortunate Ones by Ellen Umansky

Reading, for me and for many, is both a pleasure and an escape. These days we need both!

Anne Tyler has been writing books for a very long time, and I have been reading them for just as long. Redhead by the Side of the Road, published this spring, provided a lovely respite from the stressful world in which we are all living right now.

We meet Micah Mortimer, a man in his early 40s, who we soon discover is both compassionate and intelligent, but also seems to be ruled by habit and his own inflexible schedules.

We follow Micah through his days, as the very reliable caretaker for a small apartment building, putting out the garbage bins, fixing broken towel bars and light fixtures. His interactions with the residents are kind but brief. Micah begins each day with a run, then a shower, and he is off in the car on his calls as a self-employed computer repairman. Again, he treats his clients kindly and fairly. Micah and his “woman friend” Cass seem to have an easy-going arrangement of meeting regularly. His life is without stress, but it is also without so much more – and he is beginning to understand that something is lacking.

It is when we meet Micah’s siblings and their children that we realize why this man needs order in his life. And, when we meet his first love, his college sweetheart, we discover why he has, eventually, failed with every relationship since then.

Redhead by the Side of the Road is a happily ever after novel – one just right for trying times.

The Fortunate Ones, Ellen Umansky’s debut novel, was a delight to read. I was lost in this book from the first page. The story is that of Rose Zimmer and her brother, Gerhard, who leave Vienna in 1939 and live in England for the duration of the war. They leave behind, not only their parents, but also their home. A home filled with beautiful things, including a painting by Chaim Soutine, The Bellhop, that was a particular favourite of their mother.

We meet The Bellhop again in Los Angeles where it was in the home of Lynn and Joseph Goldstein. After the deaths of their parents, daughters Lizzie and Sarah must settle the estate, and the question of the painting and what happened to it many years earlier surfaces.

When Rose and Lizzie meet at Joseph Goldstein’s funeral they are connected by the importance of The Bellhop in both of their lives, and a friendship develops between the two women, who have both suffered loss. The rest is yours to discover.

I read this late into the night and loved every bit of it!