Searching for Caleb

by Anne Tyler

Ranging from the ragtime era to small-town America in the seventies, Searching for Caleb is a moving quest for a family's deepest roots - and a haunting story of growing up and breaking away, acceptance and rebellion.

OVER A MILLION ANNE TYLER BOOKS SOLD

‘She’s changed my perception on life’ Anna Chancellor

‘One of my favourite authors ’ Liane Moriarty

‘She spins gold' Elizabeth Buchan

‘Anne Tyler has no peer’ Anita Shreve

‘My favourite writer, and the best line-and-length novelist in the world’ Nick Hornby

‘A masterly author’ Sebastian Faulks

‘Tyler is not merely good, she is wickedly good’ John Updike

‘I love Anne Tyler’ Anita Brookner

‘Her fiction has strength of vision, originality, freshness, unconquerable humour’ Eudora Welty

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Novels, Literature, Adult, 20th Century

428 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Anne 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.

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to think that heaven was … palatial. I was told it had pearly gates and was paved with gold. But now I hope they are wrong about that. I would prefer to find that heaven was a small town with a bandstand in the park and a great many trees, and I would know everybody in it and none of them would ever die or move away or age or alter.”

It’s been years since I read Anne Tyler. I devoured this one, my favorite so far, and it gave me a renewed appreciation for her talent.

What an imagination. She pays wonderful attention to detail, which translates into characters overflowing with personality and individuality. After just a few pages, I start to feel I know them, like they’re my own odd family, like I’ve been sharing embarrassing and tragic stories with them over dinner for years.

The Peck family believes in a certain lifestyle. Established in a wealthy section of Baltimore, Maryland at the turn of the 20th century, they mind their manners and all work in the family shipping business. They’re very proper, very predictable and very insulated.

By the 1970’s, not much has changed for most of them, but the elderly Daniel Peck is living with his granddaughter Justine. Justine is a fortune teller, married to her cousin Duncan Peck, a kind of vagabond who has rejected all the family ways, and they move from town to town every time Duncan gets bored with his job. As the story opens, Justine and her grandfather are on the latest of many jaunts looking for leads to find Caleb, Daniel’s brother who ran away from the family when he was just a boy.

Daniel loves order and routine. Justine loves her family. Duncan loves Justine. And I loved them all--fell for them hard and fast.

The Peck family has a tradition, a discipline, really, of sending thank you notes (bread and butter notes, they’re called) immediately after a visit. Just something short, but always mentioning one thing that they will fondly remember. So I’d like to follow their lead and their format with a thank you note of my own.

Dear Peck Clan,

I want to thank you so much for allowing me to spend time with your sometimes eccentric but ultimately loveable extended family.

Your story made me feel deeply both the need for freedom and the importance of family ties, and made me see a way these two drives that often compete inside us might live together in harmony.

I shall remember my visit with a great deal of pleasure for a long time to come.

Love,
An extremely satisfied reader

[Susan's Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lost family members, lost opportunities, lost choices: you name it, this story is symbolic of everything we sacrifice when we refuse to embrace much needed CHANGE and CHOICE.



Fear of the unknown can cripple your life and leave you on the flatline.



Justine, the main character, is intuitive - she and her husband Duncan are the misfits of the Peck family. Indeed, the entire Peck clan is totally conservative and rigid in its ways - they have closed ranks against the rest of the world.



This novel is a veiled social commentary of inflexible class and belief systems. It is set in the 50's and beyond. Racism is also addressed, but in an indirect or "observing" way. Ann Tyler was raised in the Quaker faith so of course she tries not to pass judgment or impose her own social views, but I love that JUSTINE, the main character, tries to stand for social justice every chance she gets - she often does off the cuff things like impetuously joins an anti-racism picket line en route to the grocery store.



I love Justine's way of looking at life: she is so open, so bravely hopeful!



Her "go with the flow, and make the best of things" attitude just makes so much sense. Yesterday's truth is tomorrow's fallacy. Justine was also very funny: that incident with the car door - and her comment to her grandfather - had me howling with laughter.

Without dropping any spoilers, I have to say that I just loved that ending! Anne Tyler is an outstanding writer: she takes the everyday events of life and injects them with humour and compassion. So glad she is a prolific writer, and still going strong!!!



For fans of quirky slice of life stories, with a few oddball characters thrown in for good measure, this book is a must-read, which I rated 4.5 out of 5 stars - rounded up to a 5 because that ending still has me smiling!!! Go, Justine!!!

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is the most beautifully written book I have ever read. I can open to any page and get drawn in. Bittersweet and inspiring.

[Mary Lins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This weekend my worst nightmare came true! I found myself facing a long plane flight with NOTHING TO READ! I had miscalculated how long it would take me to finish the novel I was reading on my outbound flight from Houston to Seattle, finishing it early leaving me with nothing to read on the home-bound flight.

To the rescue, my lovely niece took me to a fantastic used bookshop near her dorm at the University of Washington (shout out to indie, Magus Books, on NE 42nd Street). After taking several deep deep breaths of that lovely and evocative “old books” smell, I knew I wanted to find an Anne Tyler novel to re-read on the way home. I wanted something that was 100% guaranteed to sweep me away (to Baltimore, of course) for the long day of traveling to come. There were several Anne Tyler selections (I own copies of ALL her books) and so I just closed my eyes and picked “Searching for Caleb”, which was published in 1975. I didn’t read it for the first time until 1986, after having fallen in love with Tyler when “The Accidental Tourist” came out in 1985, after which I caught up on her older novels.

When I got home from the trip I checked my records (yes, I keep a list), and found that I’d read “Searching for Caleb” in 1986, 1994, 2000, 2005, and 2010…so this was my 6th time. AND the third copy I’d purchased (I’ll be giving this one to my sis!) The great thing about re-reading Anne Tyler’s novels at different ages and stages in my life, is that I identify with different characters, and have different understandings than I did when I was younger. Her books are timeless, really. I’ll never stop re-reading them. I have a cousin that re-reads Jane Austen regularly; Anne Tyler is my Jane Austen. In fact, she’s the Jane Austen of our time, writing about home and family.

So how is this a review of “Searching for Caleb”? Well, it’s not, per se, but you can find synopses or reviews on this site. This is a recommendation; you can bet that if I’ve loved a book enough to enthusiastically read and re-read it six times, and become thoroughly enthralled each, and every time…well then, I think it’s worth your time, too.

Coda: no matter how many times I read this novel, I always forget whether, in the end, they FIND Caleb or not! That’s because it’s the SEARCH for Caleb that matters. Enjoy!

Oh, and one more thing - Anne Tyler's newest novel "Clock Dance" comes out in July: I. Can't. Wait!

[Andréa Lechner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Until my local library closed due to Covid-19, I was systematically reading all of Anne Tyler's novels, or at least as close as possible to their chronological order. This one, followed closely by Ladder of Years and The Accidental Tourist, is my favourite. I would pick it as number one, as the mysterious opening and subsequent search for the missing Caleb make it a fantastic read. It has intrigue, beguiling characters and a sense of wonder at the disparate lives of Caleb's family and their expectations in terms of career choices and life paths. I would take this book to a desert island.

I have just finished reading this book for a second time, and loved it every bit as much as the first. This time, though, I noticed the sadness more, the missed opportunities, the aspects of family one is not able to change. Without describing any potential spoilers, I felt particularly drawn to the character of Daniel Peck - I identified with his zest for life, his unending positivity and tenacity in the search for his long-lost brother Caleb. An absolute must.

[Helene Jeppesen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was good, but not one of Tyler's strongest works. It deals with Justine who is a fortune teller. But it also deals with all of her family who are somewhat puzzling, but overall endearing.
It's funny how this novel comes with a mixture of strong and amusing parts as well as long, dull parts. I especially loved reading about Justine's childhood and her finding a husband, but I didn't particularly care about her fortune telling present which I couldn't really relate to. Justine is a somewhat quirky woman and she seemed way too dependant and unsettled in her life. At the same time, I loved reading about some of the other characters in her family, and all in all that led to a bewildering, however alluring story.
This book was published in the 1980s, and while I don't see it as one of Tyler's strongest books, it was still worth a read and I definitely do recommend it.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1912, Caleb Peck walked away from his family and from Baltimore and was never heard of again. Some 50+ years later, his brother Daniel and great niece start tracking down leads to try to find him.

"If I could just walk to church with him once more," he told her, "only this time, paying closer attention, don't you see. If I could pass by the Salter Academy and look in the window and see him wave, or hear him play that foolish messy music of his on the piano in the parlor—if they could just give me back one little scrap of time, that's all I ask!"

Any of us who has ever lost a loved one can relate to this quote—but how much more deeply would you feel if you believe that person is likely still alive?

We know Anne Tyler for her mastery of showing us dysfunctional families. The Peck family appears to be the epitome of conventionalism. How can it deal with those very few individuals who are unconventional? How do those individuals function in a conventional atmosphere?

While not her earliest work, Searching for Caleb was penned relatively early in her career. Still, I think I can say that I liked this as much as (and in some cases more than) her later work. With the exception of the 90-year old Grandfather, this is a book filled with young people not yet old enough to be experiencing any mid-life crisis. I have not yet read any of her other early ones, but I'll make an effort to seek them out because I suspect that earlier viewpoint will appeal to me. I might be feeling a tad stingy today, but this is just a solid 4 stars.

[Lea · Rating 2 out of 5]

At first I thought maybe it's because I'm sick that I found this 1975 book a little bit of a drag to get through, but then I remembered that I'd already been reading this novel for almost two weeks before the fever started, and I'd always found myself putting the book down after 20 pages or so. In short: This book felt like work for me and I wanted for it to be over. I did enjoy parts of it very much, but it never really fully came together for me.

I didn't really care for the fortune teller Justine, her odd cousin/husband Duncan (why always the "strange" husbands in her novels?!) or her grandfather who is looking for his brother, Caleb. The novel is in part about the search and in part just about family structures in general. When Anne Tyler does this well, she does it like no other author I know, but here I never really understood what she was trying to tell me, as most of the characters were quite thin. It's not a bad book, but definitely one of the author's weakest. Where other novels of her can be quite comforting, this was rather bleak at times, only tinged with humor and warmth here and there.

I've now read all of Anne Tyler's novels and can firmly say that she is one my favourite authors. I can only hope she's going to release a couple of more novels in her old age and I'm also waiting for her short stories to be released in a collection eventually!



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) - 2/5
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

[I. Mónica del P Pinzon Verano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hace poco cumplí 40 años. Era una edad que esperaba con mucha ilusión desde hace tiempo. En las vísperas de mi cumpleaños, busqué algún título para celebrarlo. Tenía un antojo un poco abstracto, quería algo con pasión, sexo, libertad y feminidad. Los primeros títulos que se me colaron en la baraja (y aclaro, me quería dejar llevar por el título) fueron Historias eróticas para viudas del Punyab, El cielo es un orgasmo y otros relatos pecaminosos, Mujeres y maravillas, y En brazos de la mujer madura. Sin embargo, para estos días, no era mi única búsqueda. También estaba tras un autor o autora estadounidense que no hubiera leído; y así me encontré con Anne Tyler. Anne Tyler tiene muchos títulos, pero me animé con este porque Justin, la protagonista, además de tener la misma edad que yo, busca su libertad.

Buscando a Caleb, es la primera novela de Anne Tyler, y narra la historia de la numerosa familia Peack, de la cual Justine es miembro. Caleb es el hermano del abuelo Peck, que dejó la casa hace más de 60 años y no saben nada de él desde entonces. Aunque Justin emprenda la búsqueda de Caleb junto con el abuelo Peck, en realidad Caleb es solo la excusa para desarrollar la historia; en la cual Justin, una tarotista que no puede leer su propio futuro, busca su lugar en el mundo, su propia vida.

La historia arranca con Justine y el abuelo Peck en un vagón del tren, que va de Baltimore a New York. Ellos están detrás de algún rastro de Caleb. Este inicio y la sinopsis, me llevaron a imaginar una historia de carretera y de formación. Me equivoqué; y a partir de ahí, desde el mismo inicio, me di cuenta que mi papel era el de acompañante y que avanzaría por la novela sin saber qué derroteros tomaría.

Los Peck son una familia excéntrica y esta es una novela mágica. La historia da cuenta de su árbol familiar, desde sus orígenes, y si bien no tiene nada nuevo una saga familiar, es mágico y maravilloso el recorrido que hace A. Tyler por el tiempo y por los personajes. Las imágenes que crea Tyler son cálidas, cercanas y sin arandelas; entre tanto, que su narración no tiene sobresaltos ni puntos sobresalientes por la tensión, lo cual hace del lector un auténtico acompañante.

Y ahí está esa casa vieja atiborrada con los objetos que la habitan. Están los Peck con sus absurdos, sus excentricidades, su parloteo y su amor. Y veo que mi familia es como los Peck, y me reconozco, como “tan de mi familia”. Hoy a mis 40 años, cuando ya superé mi infancia y mi primera juventud; esa época donde mi familia me parecía tan peculiar, tan llena de rarezas y objetos encantados en la pieza chiquita (así llamábamos al cuarto de san alejo) siento que, Buscando a Caleb, me lleva inevitablemente a revisitar el mito de mi familia. Ha sido una experiencia bella y divertida. Yo creo que en algún momento de la vida, sobre todo en la infancia y la adolescencia, muchos hemos visto a nuestras familias muy diferentes a como son la de los demás, y muy diferente de nosotros. No deja de ser tierno y gracioso, cómo el tiempo nos vuelve uno de ellos. Probablemente, ese sea el proceso de Justin y Duncan (su primo y esposo), que mientras Justin en sus propios orígenes encuentra su libertad, a Duncan se le revela más el Peck, aún cuando siempre quiso ser otro.

¿Qué encuentra o encontrará cada uno al revisitar el mito familiar? Yo veo parte de mi misma y muchas de mis causas; y sé que me faltan más cosas por descubrir. Si bien, mi descubrimiento no fue la libertad o mi lugar en el mundo, Buscando a Caleb, me señala las quimeras que perseguimos como libertad ¿qué es la libertad y en dónde está la vida?

¡Qué buen y bonito regalo de cumpleaños! Estoy contenta con esta novela de Anne Tyler que no tiene sexo, ni pecados, ni sobresaltos; pero sí feminidad y emancipación. Tuve un cumpleaños bonito. Me encanta esta edad y agradezco lo que cada uno de mis años me ha regalado y el legado de mis ancestros. Los otros títulos quedan pendientes para seguir celebrando.

[Julietta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who says nothing ever happens in an Anne Tyler book hasn't read "Searching for Caleb". There is plot galore in this book! Of course, as usual, I won't go through the entire action-packed plot in order to: 1) avoid spoilers and 2) let you find out yourself by reading the book.

Reading Tyler is like picking through a jar of pebbles filled with marbles and leaves: the pebbles are the structure, the marbles are the "marbelous" literary devices, and the leaves are well-developed characters. Those veiny leaves contain a myriad of branching details about each character. I think I've worn that simile out, but you get the picture.

When SFC opens Justine, the fortune teller, and her grandpa Daniel are heading to NYC on the train after the funeral of Daniel's brother's friend, Paul Jeffrey. Grandpa is on a desperate mission to find his brother who left the family many decades before.

About cold weather-their breaths trailing out of their mouths like white tatters

As in most Tyler books, the family lives in Baltimore EXCEPT for Justine, her husband Duncan (who is also her cousin), and Grandpa Daniel. They have been constantly moving, following Duncan around as he gets and fails at job after job. Each time Duncan finds a new job he becomes briefly enthused with it, then quickly becomes bored and is ready to move on again. He is a sort of scientific egghead and pseudo-inventor who has rebelled against his staid Baltimore family. The set-in-their ways family reminds me very much of the people in "The Accidental Tourist," another of Tyler's many wonderful books.

Grandpa asks Paul's wife if she knows Caleb, his brother. He explains-Our family is very close knit, a fine family, we have always stuck together, but I don't know, periodically some…explorer sets out on his own. This explorer description applies mainly to Duncan, to Justine who follows him, and to Caleb who always wanted to be a musician when all the rest of the family were lawyers and worked at the family shipyard firm, another common Tyler theme.

Justine and Duncan's 17 year old daughter Meg simply wants to be like the original family, to live a "normal" life, but her parents keep moving her around!

Although there was no second floor the dormer window of some attic or storage room bulged out of the roof like an eyelid.

“This house is even worse than the last,” said Meg.

It's 1973. Duncan and Justine are 40. They're “pack rats”/hoarders. Justine is not a fan of cooking or cleaning. There is little point in fully unpacking or decorating as the 4 person family will soon be uprooted and moving again. Grandpa has a file cabinet with 23 years of mail from his former job besides old clothes, and news article clippings. Duncan has metal parts to use for inventions and piles of books about obscure topics. This time Duncan works in the Blue Bottle Antique Shop because owner Silas is getting too old. Duncan is always initially enthusiastic, then gets bored, starts drinking, gets fired, they move again. Alonzo, the carnival owner from a previous job, calls Duncan and Justine to meet. Alonzo needs Justine to predict his fortune or answer his question for the 20th time. He has been following her from place to place through their many moves.

Flashback to family of origin the Pecks. Dad Justin and mom Laura, 2 sons Daniel and Caleb. Caleb is to work for dad's shipping business but wants to be a musician giving Justin “apoplexy” as it was called at the time, a stroke. "You have killed your half of your father," says mom. So Caleb takes the job. The business building burns down and a new one is built in Roland Park. The family builds two large homes: one for the parents and Caleb, one for Daniel and his family. Daniel has become a lawyer, marries Margaret Rose, and has six children. She leaves because the Pecks are so insular and don't really accept "outsiders" even if they have married into the family, but she is not allowed to take the children.

1912-Caleb seems to be gone, he has walked away.

For in 1912 it seemed that the Peck family suddenly cracked and flew apart like an old china teacup.

I won't continue with all of the convolutions of the plot. If you can picture this cast of characters, those who stick together and those who fly apart, you can guess that many tragedies will ensue. Each character will stick to their own personality. There will be attempts to bend and adapt by those who can, but it won't really be possible.

The main tension is between Justine and Duncan who are drawn to each other, yet stretched to the limit simultaneously as their natures fling them apart. I was hanging on every word and look in the scenes between them. I desperately wanted them to stay together, yet felt it would be impossible in the long term. There was that delicious feeling of impending doom.

In the beginning, when Duncan moves away because he can't stand the Peck way, Justine keeps visiting him. They're falling in love even though he alternately can't stand her, fights with her, yet wants her. Justine loves the weird Peck family. Duncan feels they are very set in their ways. Both things are true at the same time. They want to get married although they're cousins.

The agreeable and malleable side of Justine-"Both sides sound correct. I always agree with who I'm listening to."

The other side of Justine-"And if you ever walk off again, you realize I won't follow. I'll have them declare you legally dead, I'll remarry right away.”

“Of course,” he said serenely.

Justine, as described by Alonzo-"Then here you come galloping along in your terrible hat and your two sharp hipbones like pebbles in your pockets."

Daniel has been raised as a gentleman, but his search for his brother Caleb, and all the emotion around it it starting to wear him down.

Here are his comments on the topic-"In my childhood I was trained to hold things in, you see. But I thought I was holding them until a certain time. I assumed that someday, somewhere, I would be given the opportunity to spend all that saved-up feeling. When will that be?

From my notes-Justine has completely change for Duncan and lost all her sweetness and family connection. Now she just rushes around breathlessly, but Duncan is his identical self. How will this continue to work?

There is only one way for you to find out how the tension will be resolved and that's by reading this wonderful tome! I highly recommend you do so!

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this book every 2-3 years since first buying it at Borders in 2001 (I owe a priceless debt to my freshman year English teacher for introducing me to Anne Tyler). It is probably my number one favorite of all time.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book I've read by Anne Tyler. I tried reading Saint Maybe a couple months back and really couldn't get into it. That's not the case at all with Searching for Caleb, which was a fantastic book. I knew about halfway through that it was going to be a 5-star book for me. The only way I would have knocked any stars off is if Tyler had pulled a Stephen King on me and vomited up an ending that made absolutely no sense. I'm happy to say that did not happen.

This is a story about the Peck family and all the incidental people who are lucky or unlucky enough to get caught up in their family unit. And what a unit it is. The story centers on Daniel, the hard-of-hearing grandfather, Justine, his grand daughter, and Duncan, his grand son. They are all involved in the search for Daniel's long lost brother, Caleb. Daniel is in his nineties when this story begins, so his brother would be in his late eighties, if he's even still alive. But the funny thing is, whether or not they find him really didn't matter to me. (Don't worry, Tyler gives you an answer.) What mattered to me were the characters. They're all amazing, even mean ol' Sulie.

I'm not sure what the deeper meaning of this story might be, but it was enough for me to get lost in someone else's life for a few days. (I'd also like to note that I finished this book in 5 days, which might be a new record for me considering how slowly I read.) And this reinforced my belief that my favorite books are not those that concentrate solely on action and plot, but rather on those that are heavy with character and 'moments'. Allow me to explain: I'm also currently halfway through David Eddings's Belgariad series. There is a lot of action, and there is a definable plot in the form of a high-fantasy adventure quest, but what Eddings does that I love so much is that he populates the story with funny, lively characters and then throws them into 'moments' that really have nothing whatsoever to do with the bigger quest but which have everything to do with who those people are. It is very character-driven. And Tyler, like Eddings, gives us amazingly rich characters full of humor and sadness and shows us how those people cope with those random moments.

In some ways, Searching for Caleb is reminiscent of a John Irving story. John Irving, it could be argued, is all character and no plot, and in some ways Tyler follows his quirky character model. But unlike Irving, she favors us readers with a hint of a plot, and one that she fully resolves in the end. One Ivring-ism that Tyler omits, fortunately, is Irving's obsessively overused character quirks and ticks. Irving will find some mannerism or phrase to attribute to a character and he'll use it ad nauseum. For example, in Until I Find You, there is Alice's constant mantra of "Not around Jack" every time someone says something vaguely more than PG-13 in front of her son. Tiresome. This never happens in Caleb. I never got tired of these characters. I wanted them all to be happy in the end.

I'd like to think they were, but either way I will say that *I* was happy in the end.

[Rowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fortune tellers and writers will like this book. These two careers are not as wacky to put together as one might think. Elizabeth Sims conflates them, writing in YOU'VE GOT A BOOK IN YOU that writers are mystics, and SEARCHING FOR CALEB serves insights into both jobs. For instance, Anne Tyler writes how to tell fortunes for women wearing pantsuits, "Justine hated pantsuits. Whenever she saw one, she had an urge to tell the owner some scandalous fortune, loudly enough to be heard everywhere: 'The father of your next-to-last baby has run off with a cigar-smoking redhead.'" (Wonder what she'd tell the pantsuit nation!) While Tyler delves into expository writing and backstory in large portions of the novel, she employs a simple, yet dynamic technique to create drama--she has someone move. What writers can take away from this technique is to simply let your characters live. Let characters play solitary, let them go to the diner, let them write letters, and when it's time for drama, let one of them move away or take off. The gap the absent person leaves behind creates drama that everyone else has to cope with.

[Maxwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times this felt more like a historical fiction novel than other Anne Tyler books. There's a larger focus in many chapters on the family history which felt like info-dumping. I personally connect more when Tyler writes from the 3rd person perspective but as if we are inside the mind of one of the characters. He strength lies in getting us to connect and empathize with characters who are flawed but very human, and unfortunately with this story I just didn't feel that same connection.

It's still a charming, sweet story about finding one's own path outside of their family and the effects these decisions have on those around us. But it lacked some of the qualities I really enjoy in Tyler's other work, so it wasn't my favorite ever.

[Huy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mình mua cuốn tại một hiệu sách cũ ở Thái Lan, bản đầu tiên xuất bản năm 1974, có nghĩa là còn lớn tuổi hơn mình.
Suốt 6 thập kỷ qua, Anne Tyler vẫn viết đều đặn và cho ra đời những cuốn tiểu thuyết tuyệt vời với sự tỉ mỉ hiếm có và tràn đầy sự quan tâm đến độ ta thấy những mảnh của cuộc đời mình trong những câu chuyện của bà.
"Searching for Caleb" không phải là cuốn sách xuất sắc nhất của bà nhưng là một trong những cuốn sách mà bà đang ở thời kỳ đỉnh cao và cuốn tiểu thuyết có tất cả những gì mang dấu ấn của Anne Tyler: một gia đình bình dị ở Baltimore với rất nhiều thành viên gắn bó với nhau để rồi dẫn đến những hiểu lầm, những cuộc bỏ trốn, những nỗi tiếc nuối... tất cả những điều này được bà viết với sự hài hước đằm thắm, sự dịu dàng đầy thấu hiểu khiến ta tin rằng, đâu đó ở nước Mỹ hoặc bất kỳ đâu trên thế giới này, có một người anh đã trên 80 tuổi vẫn cứ mãi đi tìm đứa em trai tên Caleb của mình.

[Ayelet Waldman]

I read this as I finished the final rewrites for my book that is now called Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. Anne Tyler is a perfect role model for me as a writer. High aspirations are good for a person. I liked this book very much, despite the fact that the main character is a fortune-teller. I usually hate free spirits, and I was afraid she'd be one. But she was significantly less of a twit than I had feared.

[JimZ]

Pretty much like all of Anne Tyler's oeuvre. I briefly lived in Baltimore which made it even better because most if not all of her books are based there.

[Cathryn Conroy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is literary fiction written by a Pulitzer Prize winner, but just like every Anne Tyler book I read, it feels like comfort food for the soul.

And this is classic Anne Tyler! Mix one quirky family living life on the edges of what most people consider to be "normal" with one consuming quest and you have a book that just takes the reader away. From the first sentence to the last, this novel is filled with life advice and profound insight.

Meet the Peck family of Baltimore, Maryland. Daniel Peck marries Margaret Rose and they immediately have six children—one a year. Not surprisingly, she leaves him, but that's fine. Pecks do better with just Pecks. The kids grow up and have children of their own. They build four homes in a row so they can stay close together. The book opens with Daniel and Justine, one of Daniel's grown granddaughters with whom he lives in his old age, on a train headed to New York City. It's 1973, and they are on a quest to find Daniel's long-lost brother, Caleb, who just up and disappeared in 1912, leaving home carrying only his fiddle. And to make things even more interesting and peculiar, Justine is married to Duncan, her first cousin. She works as a fortune teller, while he is a jack-of-all-trades, who starts and crashes in businesses—from raising goats to selling antique tools—with great regularity. Daniel's search for Caleb is the only way he knows to reconnect to his past, while Justine views it as a way to finally figure out who she is.

Like all of Anne Tyler's novels, this is a book grounded in the characters. Yes, they are truly eccentric, but I fell in love with each of them. The plot is secondary. (Just know that going in, especially if you really enjoy page-turners.) Oh, and the ending is perfect…simply perfect.

Brimming with emotional resonance that is wise and witty, this is a magnificent story that celebrates the greatest mystery of all: family love in all its quirks, heartbreaks, and joy.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm on an Anne Tyler bender, re-reading several old favorites over the last few months. I want to be able to write like AT - so beautiful, so fine a portrait artist of the passive underachiever that turns up in all her stories. I don't think I've read Searching for Caleb before, but I think it may be my favorite AT yet. She obviously loves all her characters - they all do the most amusing things, even as they frustrate and annoy. It's all so perfectly human. I feel a little more forgiving of myself when I read one of her books, and more anxious about using my limited time on earth in the ways that I want to.

[Heidi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the first Anne Tyler book I've read, though she has been recommended to me more than once. I didn't really connect with this book, and am still contemplating what the deeper meaning behind the story could be...

On the surface, the story of a wacky, and in my mind, pitiful woman from a large, closed Baltimore family who marries her cousin and then spends her life being dragged (and dragging her poor grandfather) from one ramshackle, cheap rental to another is not at all relatable and entirely depressing. Hence the search for deeper meaning.

According to the Philadephia Inquirer "It is about growing up, mating and breaking away. It is about living by prescription and living by instinct. It is about loving the past and yet defying it, and taking responsibility for terrible things while holding onto joyfulness. It is about rebellion and adjustment, the simultaneous lust to wander and to take root, to move and to stay. It's about trying, up till the moment of death, to discover what it was we rebelled against, what it was we adjusted to, what we loved and what we lost."

I'm interested to know what drug that reviewer was on. I saw not a hint of joyfulness in this book. To me it was the story of a mousy woman, who merely subsisted while letting others determine the course and content of her life. But then, I'm a glass half empty kind of girl...

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

I decided to give Anne Tyler another try. I wasn't too thrilled with the book I read by her previously and thought now was a good time to try again. Nope. Same issue with this one that I had with the last one...somewhat interesting characters but not one I could really identify with or like, and a story with no real forward movement.

[Sandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Una famiglia americana, i Peck di Baltimora, un clan alla Kennedy, legati dalle tradizioni che si trasmettono di generazione in generazione e soggetti alle convenzioni borghesi americane, una famiglia che sforna esemplari sempre uguali a sé stessi, che si ripetono di padre in figlio, sia nell’aspetto fisico che nelle abitudini di vita e nelle attività lavorative: i Peck sono avvocati da generazioni.
All’interno di questa famiglia vi è uno strappo, uno dei suoi membri, Caleb, improvvisamente scompare: le vicende narrate nel libro si dipanano nell’affannata ricerca di Caleb Peck da parte di suo fratello Daniel, che per anni girerà l’America cercando le tracce labili che egli ha lasciato, al fine di ricondurlo nell’alveo familiare. Caleb è l’esempio, il prototipo del ribelle alle convenzioni sociali, fuggiasco; simile a lui è il nipote Duncan Peck, un uomo perennemente insoddisfatto che decide da quando compie i diciotto anni di abbandonare la famiglia, ma sposa sua cugina Justine Peck, fedele alla famiglia e alle sue tradizioni, trascinandola in una vita vagabonda. E’ Justine il membro della famiglia più dilaniato tra i due modi di vivere, tra un marito inquieto e anticonvenzionale e una famiglia che la attira nel suo alveo con la forza delle abitudini; al termine del libro Justine farà finalmente la sua scelta.
Il limite del romanzo è costituto, a mio parere, dallo stile eccessivamente placido, a volte soporifero, con cui è scritto, che appiattisce la storia e i personaggi: si tratta di una caratteristica della scrittura di Anne Tyler, semplice e scorrevole, in questo caso portata all’eccesso.

[Hjwoodward · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I really love about Tyler is the fact that I can re-read her books every ten years or so and enjoy completely different bits of it. And I always forget whether they find Caleb or not!

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

She really is a master of this type of fiction.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

About 2/3 through. A breathless read. I'm made to feel that if I don't finish it quickly, I'll fall off the rails/ lose track of what & who. I suspect only bits will stay with me after I'm done, for example Daniel's fondness for horehound and root beer, and Justine's inability to figure out who she is and what she wants (at least so far), and omg I'll never know (or care) who all Pecks of Roland Park are.

Ok done.
What I love about Tyler's writing is the details. He wasn't doing a jigsaw puzzle, he was doing a 1200 piece puzzle of "Sunset in the Rockies" ... and thinking of turning it over and doing the gray side. Another "enjoyed his work as a short-order cook, frying up masses of hashbrowns and lace-edged eggs...." Or consider, "They were all particularly careful of each other, if you didn't count X pinching Y when he didn't know Mrs. Z was looking." (Note the "know" instead of "think" you see.)

Oh but poor Meg. I don't recall that Tyler generally abandons innocent characters to the vagaries of bad luck. I hope not. I hope I missed something, and that Meg is going to be able to work her way to joy.

And not least, birthday candles for grown-ups = age 93 is 9 large and 3 small.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anne Tyler is one of my favorite living authors, so I've spent the last 10 years or so in reading her back catalog. This one was sweet, but not my favorite.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book! it wasn't the very best by Anne Tyler but it's in the top three. I read some reviews on Amazon where people complained the time and setting jumped around but I thought it was wonderfully done: I got interested in Justine and her family before I learned about the earlier years and I was never confused by it. like all of her novels there is some heartbreaking scenes; what is sadder than missed connections and family that can't communicate? she describes this so well it can make me weep. but, unlike some of her novels, there is enough humor to balance it out. wonderful characters and dialog, could not be better.

2025: on re-read, I downgraded from 5 to 4.5 stars rounded down to 4. It's still a very good book, but I have recently re-read The Accidental Tourist and that one was so much more joyful and had more humor.

I'm surprised by the part where Caleb is considered "escaped" from a nursing home with the police after him because it's hard to believe that could ever happen but it was the early 70s so maybe?

Justine and Duncan are very interesting, flawed characters, and I was wishing for a happy ending for their poor daughter Meg which I am now imagining.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always enjoy Anne Tyler's writing. This is one of her earlier books (1976) and you can tell. Her characters are more stereotypical and the plot less complex and more predictable than her later books.

However, i did enjoy her portrayal of the repressed Brahmin WASP Baltimore family who allowed no one out of the family and rarely allowed anyone in -- an occasional similar wife might be an exception.

Her story focuses on the 3 rebels who do manage to leave the family because they cannot live with the constraints put upon them if they are to remain living/working within the family. Caleb is the brother of the current pater familias, Daniel, and Caleb left the family to pursue music (JAZZ!!) in 1912. Unknown to him, for many years Daniel and his grandaughter, Justine, have been following many leads to find him. Justine is another family rebel, although she was lured away by her first cousin, Duncan, a real rebel.

Despite this being not quite as developed as her later novels, the story and characers carried me along and i enjoyed it.

[Jayne Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried this one, having found 'A Patchwork Planet' quite enjoyable. Didn't like this one at all, unfortunately. The plot was vague and the characters not as engaging. By the end I didn't really care whether they found Caleb or not.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all-time favorite books.