The Accidental Tourist

“The Accidental Tourist” is one of Anne Tyler’s best-known novels. And again, it’s a family story—about the eternal conflict between the masculine and feminine principles, about attempts to find yourself without getting out of your own shell, and about their futility. Macon Leary writes guidebooks, but he hates traveling with all his soul. His guidebooks are collections of information on how, in yet another forced and unbearable trip, to feel at home, to minimize interference from the outside world in your life—an alien and unpleasant world. Macon and his wife’s share a terrible tragedy—meaningless death of their teenage son. Since then, their marriage has been falling apart rapidly. From now on, each goes their own way—random travelers wandering wherever their eyes look, hoping that one day they will meet a fellow passenger. A sad and funny novel by an American classic about how the terrible and the comic walk hand in hand, how habits try to drown life, how horror hides in the ordinary, and in the unknown—there’s hope, maybe—and maybe the opposite. The novel was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. The book was adapted for film; the film received a prize from the New York Film Critics Association, and actress Geena Davis won an Oscar.