A great pleasure - Cultural Exchange

Is the feature on Front Row called Cultural Exchange where famous personalities talk about a work of art which has inspired them. I always love to hear Mary Beard enthusing about the ancient goings on which she is so comfortable with, and I love to hear Will Self's voice - he could make anything sound fascinating, and I love Diana Athill and Germaine Greer - all the right people have been able to contribute - even the wonderful Anne Tyler!!! and today I was at home and able to hear a part of a reading of Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler which made me think - I am going to read that one again.

All Anne Tyler's books have got a point to them, it may be about the family dynamic being worked out over time, or it may be about the contribution that women who don't work (or work part time and informally) make to society, it may be about  the way you really can't escape your own personality wherever you go, even if you try to make your like work out differently (Ladder of Years), it maybe the fact that a marriage might not work, and end, but still continue in some shadowy way (The Amateur Marriage) but there is always something to take away from her novels, and maybe something funny, true and ridiculous to make you laugh along the way. On Cultural Exchange she contributed an old photograph. You can see it on the Radio 4 website and you can see how a person with some imagination (Anne has loads) would get a lot out of it.

Anne Tyler rarely gives interviews - I expect she thinks they are a waste of time - but she did a good one in the Guardian a year ago, and you can see from the comments how people love her writing but not in an uncritical way - we are disappointed with her occasional bland and twee novels. She is usually not afraid to confront the evil that men do - think of the beginning of the Accidental Tourist, the image of the innocent young boy being shot and killed in a MacDonald's. Oh, and she is popular with men, and Nick Hornby is a fan.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/13/anne-tyler-interview