Clock Dance by Anne Tyler by L. A. Keller

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I selected this book on impulse because it had almost five hundred four star reviews on Amazon.  The cover description was intriguing but the story left much to be desired.  Be forewarned that this review includes spoilers.

The book starts with Willa Drake as a young woman whose mother disappears one night. The reader doesn’t know if she was fed up with her life and walked away or committed suicide.  Willa has a confusing relationship with her father but seems close to her younger sister. I was perplexed as to what was happening between the family members because the story was so ambiguous.

After several chapters of meandering, a new chapter begins with Willa married with grown sons.   A few short paragraphs into the new chapter her husband dies in a car accident.  The reader knows nothing about what got her to this place and what happened in her life to make her the person she has become.  The author alludes to a strained relationship with her husband and sons but I didn’t understand why. Was she distant, a bad mother or was it her husband’s fault? Was she happily married or a doormat?  We know absolutely nothing about her life from teenager to grown sons.

Flash forward again more years and she’s remarried and living in Arizona.  I kept backing up pages to see if I missed some transition but the story just kept jumping ahead. I felt as if the author spent the first seventy-five percent of the book in unnecessary backstory. Willa’s real story seems to start after she goes to take care of a child that was almost her step granddaughter when the girl’s mother is shot.  It’s at this point where I finally became interested in the book.  Sadly, it was too little too late to save the story.

I wish the author had written the story of how Willa changed when she met the child and her mother. The entire story was disjointed and lacked solid characters. The end was abrupt and did not leave me wanting to read more of this character or anything else by this author.

Clock Dance

Happy Trails,

Leslie


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