Ladder of Years - Couverture souple

"UTTERLY COMPELLING . . . WONDERFULLY SATISFYING . . . VIRTUALLY FLAWLESS."
--Chicago Tribune

BALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION, declares the headline. Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead is last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing nothing more than a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To her husband and three almost-grown children, she has vanished without trace or reason. But for Delia, who feels like a tiny gnat buzzing around her family's edges, "walking away from it all" is not a premeditated act but an impulse that will lead her into a new, exciting, and unimagined life. . . .

"TYLER DETAILS DELIA'S ADVENTURE WITH GREAT SKILL. . . . As so often in her earlier fiction, [she] creates distinct characters caught in poignantly funny situations. . . . Tyler writes with a clarity that makes the commonplace seem fresh and the pathetic touching."
--The New York Times

"It is difficult to imagine a writer so prodigiously gifted" (Herald)

"Another winner from Anne Tyler" (Independent)

"Every scene breathes with intimacy. Lifelikeness almost lifts the characters off the page...scintillating with joie de vivre" (Sunday Times)

"Utterly compelling...wonderfully satisfying...virtually flawless" (Chicago Tribune)

"Anne Tyler is a writer of immaculate delicacy" (Observer)