The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler (Vintage: 2013) Aaron and Dorothy have a marriage most of their friends and family don’t understand. Then a tree ploughs into their house and Dorothy dies. Aaron is left reminiscing over a relationship which had seemed perfect. When Dorothy appears to him and poses some enigmatic questions, he starts re-evaluating things all over again.

Aw shucks, I blame myself for this one. There I was, still reeling from the beautiful offering from Julian Barnes, eyes still plastered open in appreciation for his exploration of grief, and then I go and indulge in another book about a man losing his wife.

It wasn’t Anne Tyler’s fault. She’s got a long history of world class writing under her belt. She’s a heavyweight. They even did a bit of hero worship of her on Front Row recently (and we all know I agree with pretty much everything Front Row tells me).

But this was just never a fair fight. To begin with, I had to contrast the real world, stubbornly honest account given by Julian Barnes, with this work of fiction. When put next to each other, real life will always pack more punch than fiction, especially when we’re talking about grief.

I found myself finding it hard to connect with this imagined character; this made up man who’d lost his made up wife. That’s a hurdle I never fully jumped. There were one or two moments in which I started to feel a little something. Something genuine. But those moments passed.

And then there was the clunkiness of the plotting. Real life stuff has the benefit of unquestioned pedigree – it happened, so you don’t need to question whether it’s believable or not. In this though, there were a few elbows and knees sticking out of the plot. A few characters which felt fuzzy and underdeveloped. A few decisions and a few scenarios that never quite rung true. I’m sure they would have done had I read it at a different time; had I not come to this straight after having been softened up by Barnes and his heavy doses of truth.

But then… But then there’s another side to this as well. A couple of other sides in fact, which stopped me despairing too much.

One was the unconventional nature of the protagonist’s relationship with his dead wife. Tyler made some good choices here. That was one aspect which felt real. It started as a rosy picture, which slowly unravelled into something truer. The pace of that unravelling was a little too slow at times, and at other times a little too quick, but it was interesting to read all the same.

And the other redeeming factor was the writing. I seem to be on a run of reading some pretty darn well written books of late. As frustrated as I sometimes got with the plotting, with the comparisons to Barnes, with the pacing…as frustrated as I got with all of that, this was still an easy and enjoyable book to read. I skipped through it without once tripping on a misplaced word or a poorly constructed sentence. That’s tough to do, and I certainly appreciate it when it’s done well.

So where does that leave us?

5 GBR

Smack bang in the middle of the road. If you’re going to read one book about a man losing his wife this year, read Levels of Life. If you’re going to read two, read this, though maybe not right after Barnes’s.

Next week (if I finish it in time), a book which has been billed as the Iraq War’s very own Catch 22.