by Anne Tyler, 1995
Delia Grinstead, married to Sam, a family doctor; three kids, walks away from them while on a beach vacation. Ends up living in a new town, Bay Borough, for a year and a half. Comes back for daughter’s wedding – ends up staying. Couldn’t put down (helped that we had snow days and Christmas holidays).
Sample prose: “…She came to the end of her book, but she kept rereading the final sentence till her eyes blurred over with tears…”
Page 153 (Belle at Thanksgiving): “…I can’t seem to picture marrying a man till I see him married to someone else.”
Page 1: “Baltimore Woman Disappears during Family Vacation” “A slender, small-boned woman with fair or light-brown hair, Mrs. Grinstead stands 5’2″ or possibly 5’5″ and weighs either 90 or 110 pounds. Her eyes are blue or gray or perhaps green, and her nose is mildly sunburned in addition to being freckled.” “…either frilled or lacy or ‘looking kind of baby-doll’.”