"Redhead by the Side of the Road" by Anne Tyler

An audio book. Micah's 44. He lives alone, though he's been steady with Cass for 3 years, sleeping at each other's house. He helps people with their computers, and does odd jobs in the appartment block for the owner. He's tidy, a creature of habit. The people he meets (some of them regulars) tell them about their lives. He's not very curious about other people. A boy (about 18) who thinks Micah is his father drops in. His mother was Micah's girlfriend at college, but the dates don't match. He seems to have left home. He stays a night then Micah makes him go when he refuses to phone his mum to say he's ok. Kass phones to split with him. His nephew announces his engagement. Micah has noisy relatives who look up to him at the clever one in the family.

Micah contacts the ex. The boy re-unites with his family in Micah's house. The boy cheated when writing an essay. He was scared of telling his (perfectionist?) parents. Now he's going to give college another go. Meanwhile, Micah's asked his ex why he broke up with him. This leads to him thinking about why his other relationships petered out. He goes to Cass's workplace, admits he's made mistakes, that he needs her, that he wants another chance. She seems happy.

The title alludes to his tendency to mistake hydrants for people. I thought it was a rather ordinary novel.

Other reviews

• Clare Clark (Tyler is a writer who compels not through the complexities of plot but by the precision of her observations, her perfect pitch in the music of unremarkable lives. Little by little, as Micah lives through the aftershocks of these events, Tyler peels back the layers, exposing him first to us and, at last, partially at least, to himself. As always, her characteristically unpretentious, even folksy style belies both the intricacy of her work and its quiet profundity. Her quirkily inconsequential dialogue is never inconsequential. It is perhaps why some critics continue to underestimate her. As always, she makes it look easy.)
• Amy Bloom (what [Cass] finds attractive in Micah is not apparent to this reader. And even so, Tyler is too good at what she does to let me dismiss Micah the way I want to. His barely understood grief when he has caused Cass to break up with him, his making a mess of his relationship with a young man who hopes Micah is his long-lost father is visceral and moving.)