Two topics --- family and Baltimore --- have been the preoccupations of Anne Tyler’s literary life. Her new novel, FRENCH BRAID, settles comfortably into those twin niches. In this quiet but emotionally astute story, she follows the lives of Robin and Mercy Garrett and their progeny over more than six decades, gently evoking the extraordinary in the most ordinary moments.

In this novel, her 24th, Tyler abandons a chronological narrative, culling some snapshots in time from a family album that begins in 1959 with a decidedly undramatic lake vacation (the family’s first and last one) and ends in the summer of 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic. She expertly renders the Garretts’ history in a handful of observant set pieces --- among them an awkward Easter dinner and a 50th wedding anniversary celebration --- that reveal both the love and tension that rest uneasily aside each other in this unexceptional family.

"Virtually anyone who has experienced the pleasures and pains of family life will find something to identify with in the Garretts’ story, which might have them looking at their own family history with freshly appreciative eyes."

Tyler’s chosen time span allows her to explore, at least obliquely, the changing role of women in 20th-century America. When the novel opens, Mercy plays the role of a traditional housewife, while Robin manages the plumbing supply store his wife has inherited from her father. Tyler offers an efficient summary of how Mercy views her partner: “He was a good husband. He worked hard, and he loved her. And Mercy did love him back.” Despite those feelings, “occasionally, for no particular reason, she used to entertain fantasies of leaving home.” And though she’d be the first to reject the label, she’s an early stage feminist even without any evidence she’s read Betty Friedan.

Mercy’s transformation is symbolized by her decision to rent a studio apartment above a garage near her home to pursue her painting --- producing portraits on commission of houses that “zero in on a single feature.” Over time, the studio evolves from a workplace to a home, and Mercy wonders whether it was “really so easy to convince the world that life was proceeding as usual.”

Throughout, Tyler is content to leave the reader guessing as to whether Mercy’s departure will evolve into a formal separation or divorce, as no one in the family is ever willing to acknowledge it for what it clearly is --- Mercy’s declaration of independence from her undemonstrative, but loving, husband. Robin’s unusual decision to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary with a surprise party delivers a touching, nostalgia-tinged tribute to the unconventional union of these two deeply conventional characters.

Though the story of Mercy and Robin anchors FRENCH BRAID, Tyler devotes ample attention to the couple’s three children --- Alice, Lily and David --- and their offspring, a family composed of “the sensible ones and the wacko ones” or “the difficult ones and the easy ones,” as one character thinks of it.

Alice is the quintessential sober, well-behaved eldest sibling, while Lily’s more daring personality is clear from the beginning, when she spends much of the lake vacation week as a 15-year-old believing she’s found the man of her dreams in the form of a 21-year-old college student, and later abandons her first husband for marriage to the co-worker when their affair produces a child. David, more introverted than either of his sisters, is the only family member to leave Baltimore, marrying Greta, an older woman with a daughter from a previous marriage he meets at the Pennsylvania high school where he teaches English and drama.

Tyler brings the story of the Garretts, who think of themselves as “not a particularly touchy-feely family,” full circle in a moving final chapter in 2020. David and Greta are living comfortably in retirement in the suburbs of Philadelphia when their son, Nicholas, calls them to ask if he and his five-year-old son, Benny, can move in with them to escape the pandemic in New York City, leaving behind their wife and mother, a physician who’s battling the virus around the clock. David, who thinks of the children who had once occupied his home and now are raising families of their own “just as if those children had died,” welcomes the visitors. In a few tender scenes, Tyler reveals his joy at achieving what amounts to a second chance at parenthood.

Tyler is the kind of writer who sneaks up on the reader before delivering a real emotional punch. That’s true of the metaphor she invokes to describe how families work, one that’s so perfect that the pleasure of discovering it won’t be spoiled here. But summing up what is clearly the Garrett family history, and the path Tyler expertly travels in this novel, Greta observes, “This is what families do for each other --- hide a few uncomfortable truths, allow a few self-deceptions. Little kindnesses.” David adds, “And little cruelties.”

Virtually anyone who has experienced the pleasures and pains of family life will find something to identify with in the Garretts’ story, which might have them looking at their own family history with freshly appreciative eyes.