A Letter to Anne Tyler
A note of sorrow and gratitude
Dear Anne Tyler,
I hope you’ll forgive the forwardness of this letter from a stranger, but I felt I needed to write. My name is Robert McBryde, and I want to tell you about the Anne in my life—my wife, Anne—who has become one of your most devoted admirers in recent months.
You see, it wasn’t that long ago that Anne discovered your novels. At first, I thought her Anne Tyler phase was just part of a new reading spree. (My Anne has always been a binge reader, especially of Jane Austen, whose novels she has practically committed to memory.) But as time went on, your books became something more—a lifeline, a comfort, a world to wander through as the real one got harder to manage. A couple of short months ago, Anne was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an incurable form of brain cancer, and you can guess what it’s meant for her, and for us. It’s the kind of news that stops the clocks. Since then, she’s read your books over and over, almost as if she’s searching for a map, or maybe a pocket of air.
What’s remarkable is how your stories have given Anne a place to lose herself—or maybe to find herself again, even as her brain has changed, even as the cancer has transformed the way she thinks and remembers. There are days now when conversation is a patchwork, memory is slippery, and time itself feels out of joint. But there’s an anchor in your writing. She particularly loves “Digging to America”—I imagine you’d smile to know how much she, as a new Canadian, relates to the strangeness, the possibility, and the odd, lovely mess of adapting to a new country and all its customs.
Anne sees those closest to her in your characters: their quirks, their tangled relationships, the way families can be both lifeboat and storm at the same time. She laughs at the ironic turns, sighs at the missed connections, and sometimes just sits quietly, holding the book like a talisman. There are passages she’s read aloud to me, even now, when the words don’t always come easy. And before the disease became full blown, she would recount your plots to me, in minute detail, sometimes for hours, especially after she’d downed a couple of glasses of wine.
Both of us are well aware that you, too, have known loss. In your pages, Anne has discovered a kind of tenderness that comes from real grief. I think that’s why your books mean so much to her now, as she prepares to say goodbye to this world—and to me. Soon, I’ll be the one left with the burden of grievous loss, carrying her memory through days that I hope I’ll be able to fill with some kindness, and, following your example, with a little wit.
I just wanted to let you know what your stories have meant to a woman who found her own story in them, even as she’s been losing pieces of herself. Thank you, Anne Tyler, for giving us a way to hold on—and some hints of how to let go.
Your friend,
Robert McBryde
https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/
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