Searching for Caleb

Written by Anne Tyler

Narrated by Amy Finegan

Through the syncopated rhythms of the ragtime era to the thumping, rocking beats of the 1970s, generations of Pecks have maintained a determined steadiness. Adamantly middle class—Peck-proud, as the family slogan goes—they are quick to sweep under the rug those members who do not live up to their standards. Maybe that’s why Caleb Peck took off with his violincello as a boy? Sixty years later, his brother Daniel is still wondering. No longer willing to live without answers, he turns to his daughter-in-law, Justine, another Peck family eccentric. A studied tarot card reader, Justine comes across one message over and over in the cards: change is coming. With Daniel’s help, she’s hoping to find the courage to embrace whatever happens next.

An unlikely pair struggling against a stifling family, Daniel and Justine believe they’ll find freedom in just the right mix of magic, music, and mystery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781705016398

Reviews for Searching for Caleb

[thorold_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was Tyler's sixth novel, from 1975, when she was starting to become well-known - Wikipedia tells us that this one was favourably reviewed by John Updike. We're initially wrong-footed by being introduced on the New York train to some characters who live in Virginia and are on the point of moving to a small town in Maryland, and we have to wonder whether this can really be a proper Anne Tyler novel at all, but it soon becomes clear that Justine and her grandfather are actually fugitives from a complicated extended family that lives in a couple of big houses in Baltimore, as is the grandfather's elusive brother Caleb, who hasn't been seen since 1912. So all is as it should be!It turns out to be a touching and often very amusing story about whether it's better to live our lives according to preset rules and patterns, or to be open to the whims of chance. Justine, like her missing great uncle, is an extreme case of the follow-the-whims school of thought; the rest of the Peck family are so afraid of any randomness in their lives that they have great difficulty in ever leaving the family home in Roland Park, Baltimore. Not as hard-edged as some of her later books, perhaps, but there are some great scenes (especially the one where a young clergyman comes to ask Justine and Duncan for their daughter's hand, and everyone is so distracted by other things that they hardly even notice him until he resorts to eloping with her) and some very memorable bits of observation - the Peck obsession with not forgetting to write a thank-you note after a visit, even if you have decamped through the window, for instance... Nothing very profound, but worthwhile as always.

[lidbud · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An easy to read family saga by Anne Tyler. The writing is good, and her characters are nice. This book is enjoyable, if not overly memorable.

[rmckeown_9 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Page 50 of Ann Tyler’s early novel, Searching for Caleb, is the end of chapter three. Around page 40, I decided I would give this novel to exactly page 50. But suddenly, the story became really interesting, and I plowed right through that barrier.According to the dust jacket on her latest novel, Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has written eleven novels, and Breathing Lessons won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. Most of her novels detail the lives of slightly dysfunctional families, but she does so with a dry and subtle wit. Almost all her novels I have read are set – at least in part – in Baltimore, Maryland.The novel opens with a somewhat dreary portrait of the Peck Family. The patriarch, Daniel Peck, inherited a rather exhausting array of rules governing his family. The least peculiar of which involved carrying cream-colored paper, and an addressed and stamped envelope. These “bread and butter” notes were to be written immediately upon leaving the home of family or friends after a visit. The notes were formulaic. A brief thanks for the hospitality followed by a specific mention of some bright spot in the visit. Daniel required mailing at the first post office spotted on the way home. Hedid not trust corner mail boxes when they changed from Army green to red and blue.The story revolves around Justine – Daniel’s granddaughter -- her husband, Duncan, who also happened to be her cousin, their child Meg, and Caleb. Caleb left home unannounced in 1912. He never contacted any members of the family. As Daniel aged, he clung to a single, odd photo of Caleb, with a cello, in the doorway of the second floor of a barn. The compound of houses provided living space for all the children and grandchildren. He becomes obsessed with finding his brother. After Caleb, Justine and Duncan were the first to break away from this restrictive family circle. Justine loved all of her relatives, especially Daniel, so she reluctantly left with Duncan to start a goat farm. As Duncan became bored with this project, he suddenly changed to chickens, then antiques. Tyler describes the young couple’s arrival at their new house. She writes, “‘Look! Someone left a pair of pliers,’ she said. ‘And here’s a chair we can use for the porch.’ She was a pack rat; all of them were. It was a family trait. You could tell that in a flash when they started carrying things in from the truck – the bales of ancient, curly-edged magazines, zipper bags bursting with unfashionable clothes, cardboard boxes marked Clippings, Used Wrapping Paper, Photos, Empty Bottles. Duncan and Justine staggered into the grandfather’s room carrying a steel filing cabinet from his old office, stuffed with carbon copies of all his personal correspondence for the twenty-three years since his retirement. In one corner of their own room Duncan stacked crates of machine parts and nameless metal objects picked up on walks, which he might someday want to use for some invention. He had cartons of books, most of them second-hand, dealing with things like the development of the quantum theory and the philosophy of Lao-Tzu and the tribal life of Ila-speaking Northern Rhodesians” (31).An example of Tyler’s humor involves Justine, who hated sweetened tea. On a visit to her daughter, Meg’s home – shared with her mother-in-law, Mrs. Milson – Justine is given a glass of sweetened tea, despite the fact Meg asked the elderly woman to fix her some without sugar. The excruciatingly polite Justine, sips the tea without complaint. Then she notices candy on the coffee table. “Justine chose that moment to reach toward the green glass shoe on the coffee table – sourballs! Right under her nose! – and chose a lemony yellow globe and pop it into her mouth, where she instantly discovered she that she had eaten a marble. While everyone watched in silence she plucked it out delicately between thumb and forefinger and replaced it, only a little shinier than before, in the green glass shoe. ‘I thought we could have used more rain,’ she told the ring of faces” (227).Anne Tyler’s Searching for Caleb is a lot of fun. She expertly handles all the peculiarities and foibles one can imagine in an overly eccentric family. Try any of her novels, and you will be hooked as I am. 5 stars.--Jim, 1/10/15

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A friend gave me a Anne Tyler omnibus that included Accidental Tourist, Breathing Lessons and Searching for Caleb. Searching for Caleb, the last novel in the book, was my least favorite of the three. Tyler is a gifted writer with a clean style, writing with humor and insight, and features characters that are rounded, real and very strikingly individual, from minor secondary characters to the major ones, like Daniel, and his grandchildren, cousins married to each other, Duncan and Justine Peck. Daniel is an old-fashioned gentleman who last saw his brother Caleb sixty years ago in 1912. He periodically goes on trips with Justine searching for his brother, and you get the feeling the journey is more important than the goal for both. Daniel is the most appealing character in the book, despite his at times strict and stiff ways. Justine and Duncan, on the other hand, I didn't care for much--which may be why this book dragged for me. Justine "endures" and "adapts," and puts up with far too much from Duncan--and Duncan is hard to take. He's not abusive--he's just completely thoughtless, flaky, flighty and feckless. Growing bored just when it seems he might succeed at a new endeavor, he sabotages himself, then uproots his wife and daughter to a new town. At times I found I hated him with the heat of a thousand suns, and I found the entire cycle repeated in the book depressing. It seemed the farther I got into the book, the slower, tougher going I found each page. If this weren't a relatively short novel, I probably would have given up--but having gotten two-thirds through, I grimly pushed through. The last two pages made it--almost--worth it. But not quite. I can't say I recommend it to anyone but a diehard Tyler fan.

[whirled_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Amateur fortune teller Justine Peck is a typically quirky and interesting Anne Tyler heroine. I found myself rooting for her despite her slightly unseemly marriage to her cousin Duncan, a feckless drifter who subjects his family to a rootless, uncertain existence in a succession of small towns. I was more interested by Justine's efforts to help her grandfather Daniel locate his long-disappeared brother, which offer moments of both humour and pathos. An enjoyable read.

[mhgatti · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Tyler's writing is always excellent, but this wasn't all that satisfying story-wise.

[jayne_charles_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

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.

[catien_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Justine Peck is part of a very close-knit family in Baltimore, Maryland. Most of the story takes place in the 1970s, but the flashbacks that spell out the history of the family go all the way back to the 1800s. Good book with very quirky characters.