Book review: Pacy novel is full of charm

American novelist Anne Tyler is known for her intimate portrayals of families and relationships. Novels like 'Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant', 'The Accidental Tourist', and 'Breathing Lessons', which were all nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, explore the minutiae of family life and human connections.

Three Days in June is distilled into, well, three days in June. 

At 165 pages, it is one of Tyler’s shortest novels, and this hyper focus on just three days means we’re thrust right into the narrative straight away. 

We meet Gail Baines “a right-angled person”, who has just been passed over for promotion at work because she “lacks people skills”. This is news to Gail.

It’s the day before her daughter Debbie’s wedding to Kenneth, and Gail is caught off guard by this work bombshell. 

As she sits at home “in a sort of stupor” she hears a noise outside and is greeted by her ex-husband Max, complete with literal and metaphorical baggage, and an elderly cat.

There are moments of wry comedy in Gail and Max’s interactions. 

Tyler’s command of character-led writing means Gail and Max are rounded and complete characters. You get a real sense of them as people, and their recognisable personalities are familiar. 

Gail with her directness and matter-of-fact approach: “For the wedding itself I planned to wear my best outfit, a silk-like dress in a darker grey (I don’t do well with colour)...I didn’t see the point in paying a lot of money for something I’d only wear once” and Max’s easy-going “lack of boundaries”.

The pair have an ease to them. For all her outward annoyance at Max “wouldn’t you know he had parked so close behind me that I had to perform about six maneuvers before I could take off”, Gail enjoys Max’s company “I’d forgotten how cosy it felt sometimes, hanging out with Max”. 

They jive off each other and share a common sense of humour.

Debbie’s unexpected revelation on the eve of the wedding lifts a lid on Gail’s own memories of the breakdown of her and Max’s marriage, and we dip into flashbacks of that time in their relationship.

They first met when Max (and a lab named Barbara) moved into a house Gail was sharing with a couple of other roommates. 

Gail was eventually drawn to his kind-heartedness, trusting face, and the fact that Max “thought I’d hung the moon”.

Tyler intersperses the present-day narrative with Gail’s flashbacks and we get a front-row seat to the infidelity at the heart of the break up of Gail and Max’s marriage. 

Tyler nails the subtleties of how a bond like theirs can fizzle out — it feels real and true to their personalities. 

We also learn of the subsequent detente they reach in their relationship, where Max feels like turning up at Gail’s door with a cat on the day before their daughter’s wedding is acceptable.

There is humour and charm throughout Three Days in June. Tyler guides us as we become invested in Gail and Max, and by the end we are willing them to reconcile. 

It’s clear that Max understands Gail; within two days, the unnamed cat he showed up with has wriggled its way into Gail’s heart, despite her initial protestations and she names the cat Celine. 

Max, we see, still thinks that Gail hung the moon, and Tyler leaves us hanging right to the very last line to see if Max has managed to wriggle his way back into Gail’s heart too.