Noah's Compass

Anne Tyler's new novel tells the story of a year in the life of Liam Pennywell, a man in his sixty-first year. A classical pedant, he's just been 'let go' from his schoolteaching job and downsizes to a tiny out-of-town apartment, where he goes to bed early and alone on his first night. NOAH'S COMPASS is about memory and its loss, about incidents and relationships which open up sight lines into a painful past long dead for a man who becomes aware that merely trying to stay afloat may not be enough.