The Accidental Tourist

This is a classic Anne Tyler novel that plays with the tension between the comic and the sentimental * Scotsman *Her masterpiece * Daily Mail *Brilliant, funny, sad and sensitive * Independent on Sunday *Anne Tyler gets better with every book, and this one is a triumph – funny, profound, sad and ultimately reassuring * Sunday Telegraph *Warmly entertaining and sharply organised against cuteness or mush * Guardian *The Accidental Tourist is one of Anne Tyler’s best books * New York Times *A beautiful, incandescent, heartbreaking, exhilarating book… The Accidental Tourist cuts so close to the bone that it leaves one aching with pleasure and pain. Words fail me: one cannot reasonably expect fiction to be much better than this * Washington Post *

Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her bestselling novels include Breathing Lessons, The Accidental Tourist, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Ladder of Years, Back When We Were Grown-ups, Digging to America, A Spool of Blue Thread, Clock Dance, Redhead by the Side of the Road and French Braid. In 1989 she won the Pulitzer Prize; in 1994 she was nominated by Roddy Doyle and Nick Hornby as ‘the greatest novelist writing in English’; and in 2012 she received the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence. In 2015 A Spool of Blue Thread was shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Booker Prize; and in 2020 Redhead by the Side of the Road was longlisted for the Booker Prize.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.