A dark and dingy sort of novel, with very strange characters - which isn't unusual for Anne Tyler - but very sad and less of her usual fun. ( )

3758. A Slipping-Down Life, by Anne Tyler (read June 13 2003) This is a 1969 Tyler novel, the sixth of hers I've read. This is a quirky and not often funny account of a girl who cuts the name of Casey, a most unlikeable rock musician, on her forehead. The story holds one' s interest and it is better than the last Tyler book I read (Celestial Navigation, on May 10, 2000) but not as good as If Morning Ever Comes, or Breathing Lessons, or The Clock Winder, or The Tin Can Tree, the others of hers I've read. ( )

Anne Tyler's third novel, about an unhappy overweight high-school girl of vague personality, who finally steps out of the vague fog of her life by carving on her forehead the name of a sullen rock singer she fixates on. They eventually marry, for vague reasons, and toward the end of the book she takes some measure of control over her life. Not Anne Tyler's best, but a worthy effort with the promise of great things to come. ( )