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If Morning Ever Comes
Ben Joe Hawkes is a worrier. Raised by his mother, grandmother, and a flock of busy sisters, he's always felt the outsider. When he learns that one of his sisters has left her husband, he heads for home and back into the confusion of childhood memories and unforseen love....
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
487 people are currently reading
2156 people want to read
About the author
Anne Tyler
115 books9,077 followersAnne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University. She has published 20 novels, her debut novel being
If Morning Ever Comes
in (1964). Her eleventh novel,
Breathing Lessons
, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 352 reviews
September 3, 2018
Wow. Anne Tyler's First Book, Published When She Was 22, Is Pretty Great!
The Harper Lee "Mocking Bird" (sic) reference makes absolutely no sense. But I think the illustration is based on what Tyler looked like in 1964.
***
This is Anne Tyler’s very first novel, written in 1964 when she was – gulp – only 22 years old. Apparently, Tyler has “disowned” this book and the one she wrote the next year, The Tin Can Tree. But I agree with the New York Times critic who, when reviewing the book, used words like “triumphantly alive” and “phenomenal.”
Tyler is phenomenal.
Her knowledge of people; her obsession with family dynamics; her ability to see psychology in physical gestures; her quirky sense of humour; the distinctness of her characters’ voices; her warmth and compassion – they’re all present already.
Sure, the book could be heftier or more compellingly plotted, and some of the characters better rounded. In a couple more books, Tyler would begin setting all of her novels in Baltimore, her sense of place established and firm. But this is still a magnificent first novel.
North Carolina-raised Ben Joe Hawkes is living up north in big, bad, loud New York City, studying law at Columbia. He doesn’t fit in and is continually cold. Plus, as indicated in the opening lines, he misses his family.
One day, while talking on the phone with his distant, irritable mother (one of the least developed characters in the book, I must admit), he discovers that his sister, Joanne, has left her husband and home in Kansas and moved back to her family with her new baby daughter. Ben Joe is so concerned that he hops on the night train to return to North Carolina and see what’s going on.
Once there, he finds the family of women – his paternal grandmother, his mother, and his five (or six?) sisters – in a state of normalcy. They have no idea why he’s come back, but he’s oddly comforted by their routines. Of course, no one’s talking about Joanne’s return; they say it’s none of their business. Gradually Ben Joe, the man of the family (and don’t worry, Tyler will get to the father’s absence in time), finds a way to do that.
I’ve only read five of Tyler’s other novels, but it seems like there are many displaced men in her fiction, and Ben Joe is the first. As he tells a crotchety octogenarian early on in the book, he can’t seem to "get anywhere permanent." Over the next 200 pages, Tyler will suggest how this feeling comes about by showing you things, never telling them.
She’s especially good at letting us see the disconnect between what Ben Joe believes he’s doing and feeling and what he’s actually doing. This comes out clearly when he reconnects with an ex-girlfriend, Shelley.
There’s so much to enjoy here. I laughed out loud several times. Tyler’s prose is lyrical without being precious. Her ear for Southern accents and colloquialisms feels just right without ever seeming condescending.
And I love the artful way the title is integrated into the book, first as a funny anecdote and then, deftly, during a scene where Ben Joe tosses and turns before a day that might change his life.
Tyler’s books are the literary equivalent of comfort food. I can’t wait to snuggle up with another one soon.
The Harper Lee "Mocking Bird" (sic) reference makes absolutely no sense. But I think the illustration is based on what Tyler looked like in 1964.
***
This is Anne Tyler’s very first novel, written in 1964 when she was – gulp – only 22 years old. Apparently, Tyler has “disowned” this book and the one she wrote the next year, The Tin Can Tree. But I agree with the New York Times critic who, when reviewing the book, used words like “triumphantly alive” and “phenomenal.”
Tyler is phenomenal.
Her knowledge of people; her obsession with family dynamics; her ability to see psychology in physical gestures; her quirky sense of humour; the distinctness of her characters’ voices; her warmth and compassion – they’re all present already.
Sure, the book could be heftier or more compellingly plotted, and some of the characters better rounded. In a couple more books, Tyler would begin setting all of her novels in Baltimore, her sense of place established and firm. But this is still a magnificent first novel.
North Carolina-raised Ben Joe Hawkes is living up north in big, bad, loud New York City, studying law at Columbia. He doesn’t fit in and is continually cold. Plus, as indicated in the opening lines, he misses his family.
One day, while talking on the phone with his distant, irritable mother (one of the least developed characters in the book, I must admit), he discovers that his sister, Joanne, has left her husband and home in Kansas and moved back to her family with her new baby daughter. Ben Joe is so concerned that he hops on the night train to return to North Carolina and see what’s going on.
Once there, he finds the family of women – his paternal grandmother, his mother, and his five (or six?) sisters – in a state of normalcy. They have no idea why he’s come back, but he’s oddly comforted by their routines. Of course, no one’s talking about Joanne’s return; they say it’s none of their business. Gradually Ben Joe, the man of the family (and don’t worry, Tyler will get to the father’s absence in time), finds a way to do that.
I’ve only read five of Tyler’s other novels, but it seems like there are many displaced men in her fiction, and Ben Joe is the first. As he tells a crotchety octogenarian early on in the book, he can’t seem to "get anywhere permanent." Over the next 200 pages, Tyler will suggest how this feeling comes about by showing you things, never telling them.
She’s especially good at letting us see the disconnect between what Ben Joe believes he’s doing and feeling and what he’s actually doing. This comes out clearly when he reconnects with an ex-girlfriend, Shelley.
There’s so much to enjoy here. I laughed out loud several times. Tyler’s prose is lyrical without being precious. Her ear for Southern accents and colloquialisms feels just right without ever seeming condescending.
And I love the artful way the title is integrated into the book, first as a funny anecdote and then, deftly, during a scene where Ben Joe tosses and turns before a day that might change his life.
Tyler’s books are the literary equivalent of comfort food. I can’t wait to snuggle up with another one soon.
June 17, 2020
If tomorrow ever comes
The lady comes from Baltimore, and most of her novels are set there, but this first novel by Anne Tyler was unusually set elsewhere.
However, all the factors that make her such a consummate chronicler of average American family life are already in place. Tyler’s novels are in the traditional character-driven style style of Mark Twain and Louisa May Alcott, with the authentic dialogue that lifts them off the page as in a stage set and brings them to full 3D reality in the reader’s mind.
I confess that I regularly fall in love with her male protagonists and my dearest fantasy would be to be reborn amongst the families she writes about, in the time and place in which her novels are set.
So, as this fancy of mine cannot be realised in actuality, the next best thing is to immerse myself in her back catalogue – most of which I have read in the past, and let her wonderful storytelling take me out of this god-forsaken reality we presently live in.
The lady comes from Baltimore, and most of her novels are set there, but this first novel by Anne Tyler was unusually set elsewhere.
However, all the factors that make her such a consummate chronicler of average American family life are already in place. Tyler’s novels are in the traditional character-driven style style of Mark Twain and Louisa May Alcott, with the authentic dialogue that lifts them off the page as in a stage set and brings them to full 3D reality in the reader’s mind.
I confess that I regularly fall in love with her male protagonists and my dearest fantasy would be to be reborn amongst the families she writes about, in the time and place in which her novels are set.
So, as this fancy of mine cannot be realised in actuality, the next best thing is to immerse myself in her back catalogue – most of which I have read in the past, and let her wonderful storytelling take me out of this god-forsaken reality we presently live in.
December 30, 2025
This was Anne Tyler's first novel, published when she was 22. I thought I had read it years ago, but I was either wrong about that or my memory has completely gone, because nothing was familiar about it. It doesn't matter because it's vintage Tyler, with her typical characters that have idiosyncrasies that make you love them, and a plot that seems to go everywhere at once, until you realize that it's exactly where it's supposed to be. The only difference is that this does not take place in her usual setting of Baltimore, but in NC. I am from NC originally and she gets it perfectly, the setting and the speech patterns. She was raised in Raleigh and went to Duke University where she studied under Reynolds Price, so it's only natural that she would. Baltimore or the fictional town of Sandhills, NC, it doesn't matter, her characters are universal.
In any case, I was happy to have had the chance to read this one. Now I really am a completist of her work.
In any case, I was happy to have had the chance to read this one. Now I really am a completist of her work.
January 10, 2026
I needed something positive and uplifting, but not sugary, to read. Anne Tyler is exactly that kind of writer. I read all her books back in the day and owned most of them. They have long made their way out into the world and into the hands of other readers, who have enjoyed them, I hope.
I decided to revisit this one. The title had come up in one of my groups, and although I did not want to do a group read, I realized it would be like a new read for me after so long a time. It was a good choice.
Anne Tyler can transport you right back into a world that feels so familiar that you can hardly believe you have left it behind. The good and the bad parts of that life are there, but not in any hateful or stressful way, just the facts of what it was. For instance, Ben Joe Hawkes is on his way home to North Carolina from New York and shares a train compartment with a black family, with whom he chats and visits. It is a moment shared between real people, and they offer him a ride when they arrive at the station. But, there is also this:
The waiting room was divided in two by a slender post, with half the room reserved for white people and the other half for Negroes. Since times has changed, the wooden letters saying ‘White” and ‘Colored” had been removed, but the letters had left cleaner spaces on the wall that spelled out the same words still.
It is the real world of 1964, not a sanitized version. I liked that.
Most of the story is what most Anne Tyler novels are–just a look at an ordinary family, with pasts, problems, secrets and complicated relationships. Ben Joe is a young man trying to define himself and trying to do it in the light of his upbringing and his family history. It raised the question of how much of who we are is determined by who the people around us are. Like Tolstoy, Tyler understands that people are only ordinary on the surface, underneath they are as individual as hand-blown glass.
I enjoyed this trip back in time…both the trip back to the time-setting of the novel and the trip back to the past in which I had first read it. It was exactly what I needed. It demanded nothing of me, but it gave me a lot.
I decided to revisit this one. The title had come up in one of my groups, and although I did not want to do a group read, I realized it would be like a new read for me after so long a time. It was a good choice.
Anne Tyler can transport you right back into a world that feels so familiar that you can hardly believe you have left it behind. The good and the bad parts of that life are there, but not in any hateful or stressful way, just the facts of what it was. For instance, Ben Joe Hawkes is on his way home to North Carolina from New York and shares a train compartment with a black family, with whom he chats and visits. It is a moment shared between real people, and they offer him a ride when they arrive at the station. But, there is also this:
The waiting room was divided in two by a slender post, with half the room reserved for white people and the other half for Negroes. Since times has changed, the wooden letters saying ‘White” and ‘Colored” had been removed, but the letters had left cleaner spaces on the wall that spelled out the same words still.
It is the real world of 1964, not a sanitized version. I liked that.
Most of the story is what most Anne Tyler novels are–just a look at an ordinary family, with pasts, problems, secrets and complicated relationships. Ben Joe is a young man trying to define himself and trying to do it in the light of his upbringing and his family history. It raised the question of how much of who we are is determined by who the people around us are. Like Tolstoy, Tyler understands that people are only ordinary on the surface, underneath they are as individual as hand-blown glass.
I enjoyed this trip back in time…both the trip back to the time-setting of the novel and the trip back to the past in which I had first read it. It was exactly what I needed. It demanded nothing of me, but it gave me a lot.
October 6, 2021
For no particular reason other than ease of access, I've been pretty much reading Anne Tyler's books in reverse publication order. Now that I've gotten my hands on her debut novel, published back in 1964, I can see that from the start Tyler has had a strong grasp on human behavior and a clear tone of voice. Though it may not take place in her beloved Baltimore in which nearly all her later novels would be set, If Morning Ever Comes still holds the tender, empathetic and particular point-of-view that tells you immediately you are reading a work of Tyler's.
Ben Joe Hawkes, attending law school in New York, returns home to his family in North Carolina for a few days after hearing his older sister, Joanne, has moved back with her two-year-old daughter after leaving her husband in Kansas. As the substitute patriarch of his family after his father's death, Ben Joe feels a need to keep things tidy and under control, from the family finances, to the care of his grandmother, to serving as a support system for his many, many sister (six in all, plus a mother and grandmother under one roof). His trip back to North Carolina unveils some forgotten, or repressed, memories and puts him on a trajectory of new love and a renewed life with the sincere yet realistic writing only Anne Tyler can manage.
I really grew to love Ben Joe's character. It took a few chapters to get into this novel, and the stakes of this book are quiet low, as with any Tyler novel. However, he was extremely sympathetic and I felt for him as he felt a responsibility, not only as someone who had responsibility thrust on him but also as the keeper of secrets within the family. His journey to learning to live his own life and allowing his sisters, mother and grandmother to grapple with their own grief and loss was deeply moving.
It would be easy to read this as just another simple, family story with not much depth because Anne Tyler is so attuned to how people really behave. We hide things under the surface. Families keep secrets, sometimes so well they forget all about them, while the secrets' affects continue to disturb the waters. But over time we see how this behavior manifests itself in ways that can't allow us to grow, change and live a life focus on the present, instead of being distraught by the past or anxious for the future. Ben Joe begins to realize this, and we, the reader, get to experience it with him in a profoundly generous story of finding solace in the midst of discomfort.
Ben Joe Hawkes, attending law school in New York, returns home to his family in North Carolina for a few days after hearing his older sister, Joanne, has moved back with her two-year-old daughter after leaving her husband in Kansas. As the substitute patriarch of his family after his father's death, Ben Joe feels a need to keep things tidy and under control, from the family finances, to the care of his grandmother, to serving as a support system for his many, many sister (six in all, plus a mother and grandmother under one roof). His trip back to North Carolina unveils some forgotten, or repressed, memories and puts him on a trajectory of new love and a renewed life with the sincere yet realistic writing only Anne Tyler can manage.
I really grew to love Ben Joe's character. It took a few chapters to get into this novel, and the stakes of this book are quiet low, as with any Tyler novel. However, he was extremely sympathetic and I felt for him as he felt a responsibility, not only as someone who had responsibility thrust on him but also as the keeper of secrets within the family. His journey to learning to live his own life and allowing his sisters, mother and grandmother to grapple with their own grief and loss was deeply moving.
It would be easy to read this as just another simple, family story with not much depth because Anne Tyler is so attuned to how people really behave. We hide things under the surface. Families keep secrets, sometimes so well they forget all about them, while the secrets' affects continue to disturb the waters. But over time we see how this behavior manifests itself in ways that can't allow us to grow, change and live a life focus on the present, instead of being distraught by the past or anxious for the future. Ben Joe begins to realize this, and we, the reader, get to experience it with him in a profoundly generous story of finding solace in the midst of discomfort.
Read
July 13, 2022I've read a couple of other books by Anne Tyler that I enjoyed, this one just didn't make much sense. The main character is super disconnected and doesn't seem to understand anyone or anything in life, including himself. I never understood why he did or said anything, and he always seems to be in some sort of stupor that makes you feel like you're in a cloud yourself reading it, just grasping for something that makes sense. I couldn't relate to a thing in it and I'm not even sure why I finished it. Now that I know it was her first novel, I'm a bit more understanding. But still. Just a weird book.
November 26, 2018
This is Anne Tyler's first novel. The other day I read her latest, Clock Dance. Bookends!
Only 22 when it was published, she got a rave review by Orville Prescott in the New York Times. Not bad for a young woman's first novel in 1964. I learned that she studied writing with Reynolds Price in college. Maybe he gave her a hand in getting published.
It is quite a Southern story with echoes of Eudora Welty. Ben Joe Hawks is studying law at Columbia, though not because he necessarily wants to be a lawyer. He has a widowed mother and six sisters back in North Carolina and feels responsible for them.
Suddenly one morning he hops a train and heads home. He feels worried about all those females. When he arrives they are all like, "Oh, hi," but don't see any need to be worried over.
Of course you can't go home again, especially to the South in mid-twentieth century America. That was also the theme of that disappointing Robert Penn Warren novel Flood I read recently. Tyler's book has plenty of emotion but it is not melodramatic. Her trademark human but offbeat characters are already there.
Apparently she has said she wishes she could disown her early novels. If I could have a chat with her I would say don't. I have a soft spot for first novels. It is like looking at a baby and trying to picture how that individual will grow and become to be.
I had a soft spot for young Ben Joe Hawks. There is something endearing about a lone male in a house full of females. As he tries to knit his past into his present, I felt all those females should have worried about him!
September 22, 2011
My mother (a babyboomer) introduced me to Tyler's books when I was 15. I've devoured them ever since. I read them before my marriage, while I was married, during my separation, and after my divorce. I've read some of her books 3 & 4 times. Screw those long winded writers of yesteryear that my private liberal arts college told me was brilliant: Tyler takes the cake! She's the woman (in my ridiculous opinion) that John Irving should have married. She would have eaten him alive--so, maybe not.
June 17, 2015
A beautiful stack of Anne Tyler novels have been staring reproachfully down at me from my living room shelf since I received them as a gift. I thought I might as well start from the beginning and quickly looked her up on Wikipedia to get a list.
I was surprised to find that Tyler had "disowned" her first two novels but I'm always game to try so shrugged it off and added it to my Goodreads shelf where a long list of two starred reviews popped up beneath it. I quickly skimmed some and decided to just get on with it and I'm so glad I did.
I was entranced with the slow meandering style which mimics the Southern Ben Joe's attitude. I loved the way important information was drip fed to us to build up a picture of the Hawke's family life. They are strange and quirky and I bet they seemed even more so to the reader when first published in the 1960's.
The novel was timeless. People are always people so despite the fact that no one had an i-pad or spent their time texting the novel could have been set today.
I thoroughly enjoyed this portrait of family life and the feeling of disconnection and discontent a lot of people experience of leaving home for the first time. The book has been touted in a lot of reviews as "pointless" but for me that was the point. Life is pointless, there is no beginning, middle and end, this was a snapshot of a few days in Ben Joe's life not his whole life. There was no major catalyst leading to dramatic scenes despite the fact that some life changing and dramatic things were happening.
It reminded me a lot of Meave Binchy novels.
I was surprised to find that Tyler had "disowned" her first two novels but I'm always game to try so shrugged it off and added it to my Goodreads shelf where a long list of two starred reviews popped up beneath it. I quickly skimmed some and decided to just get on with it and I'm so glad I did.
I was entranced with the slow meandering style which mimics the Southern Ben Joe's attitude. I loved the way important information was drip fed to us to build up a picture of the Hawke's family life. They are strange and quirky and I bet they seemed even more so to the reader when first published in the 1960's.
The novel was timeless. People are always people so despite the fact that no one had an i-pad or spent their time texting the novel could have been set today.
I thoroughly enjoyed this portrait of family life and the feeling of disconnection and discontent a lot of people experience of leaving home for the first time. The book has been touted in a lot of reviews as "pointless" but for me that was the point. Life is pointless, there is no beginning, middle and end, this was a snapshot of a few days in Ben Joe's life not his whole life. There was no major catalyst leading to dramatic scenes despite the fact that some life changing and dramatic things were happening.
It reminded me a lot of Meave Binchy novels.
April 27, 2022
I love Anne Tyler but her first novel published in 1964 didn't really grab me at any point. I couldn't connect to the liveless main character Ben Joe, and the love story was quite confusing. I didn't get the feeling the two even liked each other. Parts of her signature style are already here, but the novel never comes together. I'd only recommend this book to Tyler completionists.
If Morning Ever Comes (1964) - 2/5
The Tin Can Tree (1965) - 4/5
A Slipping-Down Life (1970) 3/5
The Clock Winder (1972) - 2/5
Celestial Navigation (1974) - 4/5
Searching for Caleb (1975) - TBR
Earthly Possessions (1977) - 4/5
Morgan's Passing (1980) - 4/5
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982) - 4/5
The Accidental Tourist (1985) - 3/5
Breathing Lessons (1988) - 4/5
Saint Maybe (1991) - 4/5
Ladder of Years (1995) - 4/5
A Patchwork Planet (1998) - 4/5
Back When We Were Grownups (2001) - 3/5
The Amateur Marriage (2004) - 3/5
Digging to America (2006) - 4/5
Noah's Compass (2009) - 3/5
The Beginner’s Goodbye (2012) - 3/5
A Spool of Blue Thread (2015) - 5/5
Vinegar Girl (2016) - 2/5
Clock Dance (2018) - 3/5
Redhead by the Side of the Road (2020) - 3/5
French Braid (2022) - 3/5
If Morning Ever Comes (1964) - 2/5
The Tin Can Tree (1965) - 4/5
A Slipping-Down Life (1970) 3/5
The Clock Winder (1972) - 2/5
Celestial Navigation (1974) - 4/5
Searching for Caleb (1975) - TBR
Earthly Possessions (1977) - 4/5
Morgan's Passing (1980) - 4/5
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982) - 4/5
The Accidental Tourist (1985) - 3/5
Breathing Lessons (1988) - 4/5
Saint Maybe (1991) - 4/5
Ladder of Years (1995) - 4/5
A Patchwork Planet (1998) - 4/5
Back When We Were Grownups (2001) - 3/5
The Amateur Marriage (2004) - 3/5
Digging to America (2006) - 4/5
Noah's Compass (2009) - 3/5
The Beginner’s Goodbye (2012) - 3/5
A Spool of Blue Thread (2015) - 5/5
Vinegar Girl (2016) - 2/5
Clock Dance (2018) - 3/5
Redhead by the Side of the Road (2020) - 3/5
French Braid (2022) - 3/5
January 3, 2021
It’s not a coincidence that I chose Anne Tyler to begin my year with, but I realised later that I picked her first book to be my first of 2021. If Morning Ever Comes, what a surprise of a novel! Of course I expected to like it, but it blew me away quite unexpectedly. If I could address Anne directly and if I could sum up some courage, I would say she had no right to disown this book. It should be considered right alongside her very best.
The woman knew what she was doing from the very beginning. The only fault was the book being too short; it could have turned out to be one of the finest family sagas because it features a tremendously intriguing family of headstrong women and an only boy who tries to figure out how he fits in, if at all. Led by a fierce ‘gram’ and a loving yet obstinate mother, the family bustles with six daughters of varying ages. They are complete within themselves and want for nothing from the ‘man of the house’ who for the duration of the novel has returned from his university in New York for no apparent reason.
Slowly the history of the family unfurls as the past is reminisced, the present is dotted with a few homecomings, meeting with old acquaintances and renewing love affairs. Shared memories bind and pull the family closer into a knit. The enormous weight and the freeing buoyancy of family, the pull of home, the search for identity, all of that and much more can be found teeming on these pages. All this leads to the anticipation of a morning that’ll decide the course of life for one of Tyler’s most compelling central characters ever - Ben Joe Hawkes. Even if not at the centre, the women in his life will be the guiding force behind him. This is a spectacularly special story with people, especially women, of striking personalities and I would have loved a little more time among them. Alas!
If there wasn’t a publishing date to this book, there’s nothing else to tattle on Anne Tyler being a mere 20-ish when she wrote it. She writes with such deft and depth, so much feeling, not a word out of place, never too cloying, revealing little but still saying a lot.
If I could wish for anything, I would wish to know life like she does. 5 stars!
The woman knew what she was doing from the very beginning. The only fault was the book being too short; it could have turned out to be one of the finest family sagas because it features a tremendously intriguing family of headstrong women and an only boy who tries to figure out how he fits in, if at all. Led by a fierce ‘gram’ and a loving yet obstinate mother, the family bustles with six daughters of varying ages. They are complete within themselves and want for nothing from the ‘man of the house’ who for the duration of the novel has returned from his university in New York for no apparent reason.
Slowly the history of the family unfurls as the past is reminisced, the present is dotted with a few homecomings, meeting with old acquaintances and renewing love affairs. Shared memories bind and pull the family closer into a knit. The enormous weight and the freeing buoyancy of family, the pull of home, the search for identity, all of that and much more can be found teeming on these pages. All this leads to the anticipation of a morning that’ll decide the course of life for one of Tyler’s most compelling central characters ever - Ben Joe Hawkes. Even if not at the centre, the women in his life will be the guiding force behind him. This is a spectacularly special story with people, especially women, of striking personalities and I would have loved a little more time among them. Alas!
If there wasn’t a publishing date to this book, there’s nothing else to tattle on Anne Tyler being a mere 20-ish when she wrote it. She writes with such deft and depth, so much feeling, not a word out of place, never too cloying, revealing little but still saying a lot.
If I could wish for anything, I would wish to know life like she does. 5 stars!
January 21, 2021
Tyler and I did not get off to a good start *cough* Redhead by the Side of the Road *cough.* But this book right here was a pleasant surprise. Tyler was 22 when this was published (!!!!) and I must say this is an impressive debut. Here, Tyler is really good at dialogue and family interactions. Every character had a voice and personality that popped. Everything the grandmother said was an over-the-top hoot; loved that character. I found myself laughing out loud. In fact, several of these characters had animated monologues from time to time. It made for a humorous and absorbing read. There's a lot of heart and tenderness in this book.
Seeing as I'm an only child, I've always been drawn to books about big families. And this book satisfied that itch. Admittedly, there were some dated descriptions/observations that I could do without, but that didn't detract from the story. Also note, this novel was published in 1964.
Oh my, I like an Anne Tyler book.
Seeing as I'm an only child, I've always been drawn to books about big families. And this book satisfied that itch. Admittedly, there were some dated descriptions/observations that I could do without, but that didn't detract from the story. Also note, this novel was published in 1964.
Oh my, I like an Anne Tyler book.
March 26, 2020
"'Every place I go,' he said, 'I miss another place.'"
Reading Anne Tyler's first novel is like reading a book by someone who might become Anne Tyler: quirky families; affable, slightly neurotic heroes who, despite their faults, you really hope will make some good decisions; leaving home and going back again; displaced people trying to make that family thing work out for the best.
But we're not in Baltimore ... we're in North Carolina. And the voice isn't the Tyler you love (although not entirely different), but a 20-something literary love child of Walker Percy and Eudora Welty. So southern. So genteel. So dated, but at the same time charming.
It's like looking at an old friend's childhood pictures and saying, "I totally see where you came from and my, look how much you grew up!"
November 30, 2021
This was Anne Tyler's first novel, yet it feels like the work of an older writer, looking back on lives and describing their connections. It is subdued and understated, with a melancholy strain underscoring the plot. We get to know a few of the characters, but most of them are just there in the background, existing in their own particular ways. The beginning of the book is somewhat reminiscent of Catcher in the Rye, which might have influenced Ms Tyler - a disaffected youth finding it hard to fit in, returns home by train to contemplate his options. Ben Joe is in a similar predicament to Caulfield's, but the novel develops in ways that separate it from the darkness and desperation of Salinger's book.
Apart from a few glimpses of genius, this is a quiet and unremarkable debut, yet one that would catapult the author to a prolific and very successful career as a writer.
Apart from a few glimpses of genius, this is a quiet and unremarkable debut, yet one that would catapult the author to a prolific and very successful career as a writer.
July 23, 2020
“If Morning Ever Comes” by Anne Tyler is her first novel published when she was just 22 years old.
I did not enjoy this book at all. The story did not make sense to me. No plot and terrible ending. No point to go into further detail, right?!
What I will say is Ms. Tyler admits to rereading this book in prep of a Q &A interview included at the end of this book . She admits to the interviewer the shortcomings of the book and how her writing continued to develop from that point on. Interesting humble perspective from this author! I will definitely try reading another Anne Tyler book and I have great respect for her for admitting to the shortcomings of this book.
I did not enjoy this book at all. The story did not make sense to me. No plot and terrible ending. No point to go into further detail, right?!
What I will say is Ms. Tyler admits to rereading this book in prep of a Q &A interview included at the end of this book . She admits to the interviewer the shortcomings of the book and how her writing continued to develop from that point on. Interesting humble perspective from this author! I will definitely try reading another Anne Tyler book and I have great respect for her for admitting to the shortcomings of this book.
August 16, 2011
I finished this bad boy on my Ty-Da baseball trip.
I heart Anne Tyler, and she's one of my favorite authors. This was her first published book. The writing style is wonderful, as usual, but there's really not much there. It's that and it really hurts that the main character isn't very interesting or appealing.
Hey, Anne says it best.
QOTD
"The reviews I don't remember, except that one person said the book was 'about as exciting as a cucumber sandwich,' which hurt my feelings at the time but now seems apt."
- Anne Tyler, interview at the end of "If Morning Ever Comes"
Apt, indeed!
Not to worry. I cleansed my literary palette (ha) with some Cormac McCarthy. (much better) Review coming soon!
yow, bill
I heart Anne Tyler, and she's one of my favorite authors. This was her first published book. The writing style is wonderful, as usual, but there's really not much there. It's that and it really hurts that the main character isn't very interesting or appealing.
Hey, Anne says it best.
QOTD
"The reviews I don't remember, except that one person said the book was 'about as exciting as a cucumber sandwich,' which hurt my feelings at the time but now seems apt."
- Anne Tyler, interview at the end of "If Morning Ever Comes"
Apt, indeed!
Not to worry. I cleansed my literary palette (ha) with some Cormac McCarthy. (much better) Review coming soon!
yow, bill
February 17, 2018
Anne Tyler’s debut novel tracks the self-realization of a young man whose character struggles to negotiate a balance between self-identity and family identity.
Tyler's characteristic wit and eccentricity of characters is shown right off the bat even in this first novel.
"Seems like you are always loving the people that fly away from you, Ben Joe, and flying away from the people that love you. But if you've decided, this once, to do something the other way, I'll be happy to agree."
Tyler's characteristic wit and eccentricity of characters is shown right off the bat even in this first novel.
"Seems like you are always loving the people that fly away from you, Ben Joe, and flying away from the people that love you. But if you've decided, this once, to do something the other way, I'll be happy to agree."
July 2, 2023
Oops. Perhaps I’ve been too lavish in my unbridled praise for this author’s large body of work.
It’s been a long time since my first tangle with Ben Joe Hawkes, the sad-sack Southern hero of Anne Tyler’s first novel. But even if you cut her some slack for writing such yawner at age 22, the endless dialog among the blacks on Ben Joe’s train ride from New York to Sandhills, North Carolina will put you to sleep before it arrives at the end of chapter two. And it takes another chapter to get young BJ up the hill from the station to his homestead, and for the story to begin.
By the middle of chapter four I began skipping to the next paragraph, and by chapter six I was flipping pages, and after a full hour I’d reached the last, thank goodness, sentence.
The thing to realize when you dance with Ben Joe, is that his creator has gone on to pen more than 20 subsequent novels that quickly grow from this awkward shuffle to a cotillion of waltzes that is seldom matched for excellence. And it’s with a wry smile that I can agree with author Tyler who has stated that she wishes she could retrieve all the known copies of this mess and destroy them.
It’s been a long time since my first tangle with Ben Joe Hawkes, the sad-sack Southern hero of Anne Tyler’s first novel. But even if you cut her some slack for writing such yawner at age 22, the endless dialog among the blacks on Ben Joe’s train ride from New York to Sandhills, North Carolina will put you to sleep before it arrives at the end of chapter two. And it takes another chapter to get young BJ up the hill from the station to his homestead, and for the story to begin.
By the middle of chapter four I began skipping to the next paragraph, and by chapter six I was flipping pages, and after a full hour I’d reached the last, thank goodness, sentence.
The thing to realize when you dance with Ben Joe, is that his creator has gone on to pen more than 20 subsequent novels that quickly grow from this awkward shuffle to a cotillion of waltzes that is seldom matched for excellence. And it’s with a wry smile that I can agree with author Tyler who has stated that she wishes she could retrieve all the known copies of this mess and destroy them.
August 5, 2023
Very slow paced, the comments on the mundane convey the slow pace of life and the emotions of the protagonist however this also made me bored. Accidental re-read on the kindle whilst on holiday which sums up how forgettable this book was
June 14, 2025
I consider myself a fan of Anne Tyler’s books. I have always enjoyed the way she captures the mundane everyday life through intimate family relationships. But oh my goodness, this book was dreadful. It’s hard to believe that this was Anne Tyler’s debut novel. But good for her that she kept at it and ended up being quite a prolific writer!
January 14, 2026
Vibrant descriptions of a family rife with eccentricities and dysfunction but no plot at all.
March 2, 2025
Anne Tyler per me è una maestra nel portarci in punta di piedi nell’ intimità di una famiglia che sembra ordinaria ma come tutte le famiglie ha dinamiche e segreti che non sono visibili all’esterno. Il suo modo di raccontare lento e riflessivo mi cattura sempre, anche se in questo caso si sente che è il suo primissimo romanzo e manca qualcosa per far decollare la storia
January 14, 2025
I didn't know this was Anne Tyler's first book written when she was 22 years old. Had I known that, I would have been more patient. In someone else's review they say she disowned this book. I now feel a bit guilty for writing..."I enjoyed her other books much more." Oh well. Now that I know she wrote this at 22 I am a little impressed although it was a bit odd, dark and somewhat depressing. It all took place in two days but you feel like it was a month if not longer. This review may be revised.
November 22, 2011
In a recent New Yorker article Martin Amis wrote “When we say that we love a writer’s work, we are always stretching the truth: what we really mean is that we love about half of it.” I don’t agree with that as a general rule but it sums up my feelings about Anne Tyler pretty well. Some of her books I really love (Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Saint Maybe, Back When We Were Grownups) and they’ve become a permanent part of my mental furniture. Others leave me cold (The Accidental Tourist, An Amateur Marriage) and I pretty much forget about them as soon as I close the book. Happily, this one falls in the first category.
This is Tyler's first book but many of her ongoing themes are already evident here (more so than in A Slipping Down Life, the other NC novel I’ve read). The plot is slight but the characters are engaging, the voices of Shelley and Gram in particular rang true for me. We see them from the outside (like people in real life) so we don’t know these characters intimately but they still come across as real. The six sisters do kind of run together but that seems intentional (and probably true of large families) and “the sisters” definitely have a distinct personality as a whole even if they don’t always as individuals. I like the way that Tyler gives us a slice of these characters lives without revealing all the details of their pasts or concluding too much about their futures. The book left me wanting to know more about their lives both before and after this story.
This is Tyler's first book but many of her ongoing themes are already evident here (more so than in A Slipping Down Life, the other NC novel I’ve read). The plot is slight but the characters are engaging, the voices of Shelley and Gram in particular rang true for me. We see them from the outside (like people in real life) so we don’t know these characters intimately but they still come across as real. The six sisters do kind of run together but that seems intentional (and probably true of large families) and “the sisters” definitely have a distinct personality as a whole even if they don’t always as individuals. I like the way that Tyler gives us a slice of these characters lives without revealing all the details of their pasts or concluding too much about their futures. The book left me wanting to know more about their lives both before and after this story.
September 7, 2009
I wanted to read her first novel since I have come to respect and enjoy her later works.
Anne Tyler was just 22 when she wrote this book and it's worth it just to see her picture, looking somewhat like a long haired Audrey Hepburn, on the dust cover.
The book doesn't have much of a plot. It's more like an intense character study of a southern family and the town they inhabit. Ben Joe Hawke wonders about time and place and where he fits in the cosmos. he leaves his law studies in NYC to make sure his 6 sisters, mother and grandma are okay back home in North Carolina. They think they are just fine but he is appalled by his oldest sister's flighty abandonment of her marriage and his
mother's refusal to admit that there is anything wrong with it.
He also visits the illegitimate child his father sired while he was still married to Ben's mother. For good measure there is an old man dying in town who his grandmother regrets not marrying, and a girl who Ben Joe decides he really loves and needs to bring home with him to New York City.
Anne Tyler was just 22 when she wrote this book and it's worth it just to see her picture, looking somewhat like a long haired Audrey Hepburn, on the dust cover.
The book doesn't have much of a plot. It's more like an intense character study of a southern family and the town they inhabit. Ben Joe Hawke wonders about time and place and where he fits in the cosmos. he leaves his law studies in NYC to make sure his 6 sisters, mother and grandma are okay back home in North Carolina. They think they are just fine but he is appalled by his oldest sister's flighty abandonment of her marriage and his
mother's refusal to admit that there is anything wrong with it.
He also visits the illegitimate child his father sired while he was still married to Ben's mother. For good measure there is an old man dying in town who his grandmother regrets not marrying, and a girl who Ben Joe decides he really loves and needs to bring home with him to New York City.
September 9, 2015
E' il primo romanzo della Tyler che leggo e fin da subito la sua scrittura, lineare e molto scorrevole, mi ha catturata e trasportata dentro la storia. Con delicatezza l'autrice ci porta sulla porta di casa Hawkes e ci accompagna con la narrazione all'interno di una famiglia allegra e piena di personaggi, tutti femminili ; infatti Ben Joe, la voce narrante, è cresciuto circondato da donne : la madre e numerose sorelle. L'autrice ci racconta la quotidianità di una famiglia numerosa, squarci di passato che riaffiorano attraverso i ricordi e ci affezioniamo a poco a poco ai personaggi, così ben delineati che ci sembra a volte di vivere le vicende raccontate.Un romanzo leggero e piacevole, che ti riconcilia con le cose semplici della vita e alla fine della lettura ci dispiace un po' lasciare questa casa, che per un po' di tempo è diventata quasi la nostra casa, e chiudere la porta per lasciare i personaggi che abbiamo conosciuto, e amato, tra le pagine del libro.
September 21, 2008
The author has definitely improved as a writer since she wrote this one. This is about Ben Joe and his family. Ben Joe is attending college in NY. He is studying to be a lawyer at Columbia. After learning one of his sister’s has left her husband and moved back home, he feels compelled to go home for a visit right in the middle of a semester. Home is Sandhill, NC. The family of 6 girls and 1 boy (Ben Joe), Mom and Grandma, is quirky at best. Some of the interactions amongst characters in this book are just silly (for a lack of a better word). To me, this wasn’t really a story that had a nice beginning and a happy, or at least concluded end. It was more like a picture in time that ended abruptly. Tyler has definitely developed as a writer, she is one of my favorites. I am glad I had the opportunity to read this book. It just isn’t one of her best.
July 3, 2016
I'm not sure what the overall message was supposed to be or if we're supposed to think the course that Ben Joe takes at the end of the book is a good idea (I certainly don't), but this has all those wonderful small moments and shrewd observations of family life that I read Anne Tyler for. It's quite something to see the beginnings of her style and themes in this, her first book, written at age 22.
June 21, 2009
This is Anne Tyler's first book, and her quirky style is already evident. I enjoyed meeting Ben Joe and his family of six sisters plus his mother and grandmother. Some people are born to write, and while the plot and characters here are not as intricate and multi-faceted as in her later books, we can see that Tyler had found her voice already.
July 29, 2018
I am starting over with one of my most favorite authors. I read all of her books before, some a long time ago, so I am starting from her first novel with this one. No one can create a character, a family system like Anne Tyler. Loved this story again. I had forgotten most of the storyline and enjoyed it afresh again.
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