Ladder of Years

Written by Anne Tyler

Narrated by Elisabeth Rodgers

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Breathing Lessons

“BALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION.”

The headlines are all the same: Beloved mother and wife Delia Grinstead was last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing only a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To the best of her family’s knowledge, she has disappeared without a trace. But Delia didn’t disappear. She ran.

Exhausted with her routine and everyone else’s plans for her, Delia needed an out, a chance to make a new life for herself and to become a different person. The new Delia can let go of all the hurt and resentment that left her stuck in her past.

As she eagerly sheds the pieces of herself she no longer needs, Delia discovers feelings of passion and wonder she’d long since forgotten. The thrill of walking away from it all leads to a newfound sense of self and the feeling that she is, finally, the star of her own life story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781705017074

Reviews for Ladder of Years

[schmerguls · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

5734. Ladder of Years, by Anne Tyler (read 8 Feb 2021) This novel, published in1995, is the 10th book by Anne Tyler I have read. It is a typical Tyler work, with odd people doing odd things. Delia Grinstead, wife of a Baltimore doctor, on the beach with her family, walks off and goes to a Maryland town here she finds a room and a job. She does not contact her husband nor her three children, ages 21, 19, and 15. He family soon find her but she stays in her new place and has minimum contact with her family. One has no idea whether she will ever return to her husband and children. She is invited to her daughter's wedding and there are many complicated happenings. The fact that I give the book four stars, however, may tell you something about the way the book ends.

[pegmcdaniel · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Anne Tyler is one of my favorite authors. She's a gentle writer, taking family situations to task and I find myself immersed in what's happening. Her characters are created to be interesting and well-developed. This book did not disappoint. It's set in the mid-1980s but at times it seemed more recent because of the timeless circumstances.Delia is a wife and mother of three older children (high school and college). She's feeling very much underappreciated and wonders if she was ever really in love with her husband. She didn't go to college, married very young and missed the growing experience of being on her own. She was always dependent on someone, first her parents and then her husband.Delia impulsively walks away from her family with $500 of her family's vacation money and starts a new life in a small town. She has new experiences such as finding a place to live, getting a job, making friends and living on her own. It wasn't always easy for her and she wonders if she had done the right thing. You'll have to read the book to find out what happens to Delia and the family she left. I asked myself if most women feel like Delia about just walking away from their situation. I am willing to bet they do but, before doing it, most realize the grass is not always greener.

[flydodofly · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Loved the idea and the frailty of characters, but was very much disappointed by the end. Although it does seem logical, really. I just hoped for a little more courage, I suppose.Quote: Delia wondered how humans could bear to live in a world where the passage of time held so much power.

[kitscot-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cordelia Grinstead is a wife and mother to three children. Her husband Sam, a doctor, recently suffered a heart attack, (though Delia, as she is commonly known, refers to it as chest pains). At or about the same time her father died after Delia had cared for him for some time in her own home.Her children are all teenagers and have become more independent and less reliant on their mother. Delia’s husband has become distant and less attentive. Delia has becoming unsure of her role as a mother, a wife and in the world in general.While on the annual family holiday with her family and her sisters, Eliza and Linda and the latter’s children, Delia asks a young man who was working on the holiday home to drive her to a place she knows nothing of. She asks the young man to stop at a small town and there she begins a new life with only the possessions she is wearing and what is within her tote bag.On the surface, The Ladder of Years appears to be a run of the mill novel about a middle aged woman going through the proverbial mid-life crisis. This appearance seems justified when you throw stroppy, mumbling, uncommunicative teenagers and an inattentive older husband in to the mix.However, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Anne Tyler has written a novel that defies cliché, stereotype and one’s preconceived ideas of what a woman’s mid-life crisis looks like. A clever choice on Anne Tyler’s part was to write the book in the third person. It would have been easier to have written the novel in the first person and allow us the reader to get a better and easier understanding of Delia’s motives and thoughts on her behaviour. But writing the novel in the third person puts the reader at a slight distance from Delia so making it harder to empathize or sympathize with her. It makes the reader have to work that bit harder in getting to understand Delia and her reasoning and in this process makes the reading of the novel that much more satisfying.I also believe that writing in the third person allows many male readers to follow Delia’s character without feelings of being uncomfortable in their male skin than had the novel been written in the first person. It is possible that many male readers would have found it uncomfortable or off putting to follow the character had they had access to her inner thoughts and feelings. By writing in the third person male readers are allowed to keep their distance and not made to feel that they inhabit a female persona. All the characters within The Ladder of Years are rounded three dimensional people and as a reader I felt that I knew and understood each of the novel’s inhabitants by the end of the book. This knowing and understanding is from the perspective of a friend of the family and not as a family member. By this I mean that as much as I believed I knew the character’s motives and reasons for what they did and how they lived I still couldn’t be sure I was getting the full picture. This I believe was intentional on the author’s part. I believe that Anne Tyler was trying to communicate that we never fully know someone else even when they are family. There are times in our lives when we feel like we are an outsider within our own family group looking in through a window that becomes more opaque as time moves on.Anne Tyler’s novel is a well crafted moving and at times funny novel that will not disappoint any reader, even the male of the species. Number of pages – 326Sex scenes – noneProfanity – noneGenre – drama/fiction

[mirrani_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

One of the lines near the end of the book reads, "It was ridiculous of her to feel so wounded." These few words are basically your entire plot, but the idea of the book wasn't what bothered me, and the flighty, unthinking characters weren't a hindrance to my reading. What stopped me from desperately clinging to this book in an effort to consume the whole thing at once was, in fact, the whole thing itself. The writing is mediocre, the characters are annoying and the plot is a good concept but hardly goes anywhere, even as it comes full circle in its own way. I don't mind reading books that are more like life than fiction, I don't mind reading about someone wanting to make a fresh start for whatever reason, but I do want a reason. The entire book is centered around a mother who leaves her family one day, just because she wanted to walk, then she just decided to get into a car going somewhere, then she decided to get out, then she decided to get an apartment, then a job... All in a few hours of each other, almost all in her bathing suit and a bathrobe. If she had been running from abuse or some other desperate situation, I could have understood, but to simply have a wishy-washy feeling of disliking the way the kids and husband brush her off (that is what older teens do, for the most part, it's made very clear in the book) and then discover you are miles away and you just don't happen to be turning around? I felt like the non-committal events were the author's way of justifying why everything was happening, though they were also ignoring what was happening.To be fair, the entire book so mirrors the family that you almost want to call it a stroke of genius. Who doesn't remember the description of someone in their own family? Someone who doesn't care. Who can't be bothered to keep the consistency of the plot or characters? The book itself. I can't call this book bad and I can't call it frustrating. I find myself at a total loss to call it anything other than what it is. A book that is twenty chapters long and contains text of some variety or another.

[moonshineandrosefire · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"Baltimore Woman Disappears During Family Vacation" declares the newspaper headline. Forty-year-old Cordelia Grinstead is last seen strolling along a Delaware beach, wearing nothing more than a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To her husband, Sam and three almost-grown children, she has vanished without trace or reason. However, for Delia, who feels like a tiny gnat buzzing around the edge of her own family, "walking away from it all" is not a premeditated act but an impulse that will lead her into a new, exciting and unencumbered life. In a nearby town, Delia reinvents herself - getting her first job, finding her first place, and buying her first business suit. She becomes a serious and independent-minded woman with no ties. However, soon after Delia begins her exciting, unencumbered life, fresh responsibilities inevitably accumulate.I really enjoyed this story. It drew me in completely and I was curious to see how the story would eventually turn out for all the characters. I give this book an A+! and look forward to reading more books by Anne Tyler.

[kelslynn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

On a summer vacation with her doctor husband and almost grown children, Delia Grinstead begins a walk on the beach...and just keeps on walking out of their lives. She hitches a ride to a town called Bay Borough where she knows no one and begins her life over again. She chooses to live a spartan life, to divulge little information about herself to others, and to develop a daily/weekly routine that suits her just fine. I believe she walked away because she felt she had become invisible to her family, putting their needs and desires before her own (like many mothers). In her new role she had only to think about herself. Slowly, unwittingly she begins to have a circle of friends: people recognize her and include her in their activities.When her only daughter invites Delia to her wedding, Delia accepts and returns to her home, not knowing how her husband, her children, her relatives, and old friends will accept her. However, she falls back into the old familiar patterns without hesitation.I optimistically think Delia will now have two bodies of people who care about her, and those two bodies will enrich each other. : )

[sanddune_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I haven't read an awful lot of Anne Tyler which is surprising as I really enjoyed The Accidental Tourist which I read years ago. I picked this up under the impression that it was a new book, which confused me rather when I started reading it as the main character just didn't seem believable for a contemporary novel. Then I noticed that it was first published in 1982 and it made a lot more sense.Delia Grinstead is the wife of a family doctor and mother to two teenage boys and a girl. Married at 18 to her father's assistant, she has always lived in the same house in the same town. Increasingly, her family don't seem to need her or even to particularly notice that she's around. When she realises that her husband had thought about marrying one of her father's three daughters before he had even met them, so that he would inherit the practice, she becomes disillusioned with her life. Initially beginning a (very chaste) affair with a man she meets in the supermarket, she eventually walks away from her family on a beach holiday and does not return. And it's symptomatic of her place in the family that no one is sure about her height, or her eye colour, or what she was wearing.Anne Tyler paints the day- to- day realities of family life very well in this novel, and it's reminded me that I need to read more by her.

[arielfl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I picked this up after seeing it on Jennifer Weiner's (author of Good in Bed) summer reading list, printed in Entertainment Weekly. I enjoyed one her novels so I was curious to see what she would be reading this summer. This is my first Anne Tyler book and knowing that she is a very popular author I decided to check in to see what I have been missing. The premise seemed so intriguing. Delia is on a beach vacation with her family and with only $500 in her bag she decides to walk away and leave everything, including her three children and doctor husband Sam. Tired of being a doormat, she doesn't even bother to tell anyone she is taking off. A manhunt is launched but by the time they find her she has a new job, new place to live, and new friends. Eventually she becomes the house keeper/ nanny for a lonely father named Joel and his young son Noah. It seems that she may have even replaced her family as well. Eventually a family wedding crisis draws Delia back into her old life and she has to decide which life is really hers.Although the book premise was strong there were elements that were ultimately frustrating to me. One problem is that the book ends abruptly and story lines are left dangling. Also at times this book had a very old fashioned feel. Even though it was written in the 90's, Delia is the stereotypical 50's housewife who marries young, pumps out a bunch of kids, and has no life ambition for herself. A lot of the expressions uttered by the characters had an old fashioned feel as well, hotdog! The town Delia runs off to and the characters she meets are one dimensional, small town Americana circa 1950. The time period issues left me a little confused as to whether the story was about a modern woman claiming her independence or a weak one looking for a new place to hide out now that her children are grown and ready to set out on their own lives. After reading the author discussion it seems that she meant to imply that Delia was not looking for a new family so much as she was looking for a redo so she could right past mistakes. Despite my qualms this book would ultimately make a good choice for reading groups as there is a lot to ponder about the family dynamics.

[lismb_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Have you ever thought of walking away from your life. Starting over? That is exactly what happens in this book. The subject intrigued me and I was not disappointed with this well expressed story.

[siri51 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Tyler is a good story teller but many of her charaters are in need of some sort of counselling.

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

With her usual genius for bringing very ordinary people into sharp focus, Tyler tells the story of Delia Grinstead, a 40-year old mother of three who literally walks away from her life without plan or purpose in the middle of a family beach vacation. Not surprisingly, she finds that starting over "from scratch" isn't as simple as she tries to make it. The story feels absolutely "true"-- I believe every sentence, every action, and never have that "Oh why don't you just (insert advice here) already!" feeling. And Tyler makes me chuckle over the simple little daily moments that I laugh at in my own life. I think sometimes it's easy to overlook her humor---she's so often gently poking fun at her characters, but with love. I was not at all surprised by the ending, but it did come on a bit abruptly. Otherwise, nary a quibble with this one. Oh, wait, yes, one more---was it absolutely necessary to include an unlikeable character named Linda????

[fireandice_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm not really a fan of so-called "chick lit", but this wasn't bad. The premise of the story is a forty-something housewife, Delia, becomes fed up with being ignored and marginalized by her husband, sisters and children and simply walks away from all of them during a beach vacation. Delia hitches a ride to a small town and begins to build a new life and rediscovers herself.I wouldn't call this book fantastic, but it's entertaining enough to pass the time on a beach blanket, in an airport, etc.

[jepeters333 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Woman runs away from her family and ends up living in a small town.

[whirled_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Delia Grinstead has become part of the furniture in her own life to the extent that her family can't provide a detailed physical description of her whilst reporting her disappearance to the police. After a lifetime of dependence and dull routine, she walks out in favour of a life of independence....and dull routine. I must confess I kept waiting for Delia to do something more exciting with her new-found freedom.An intriguing premise, and one I think a writer of Anne Tyler's calibre could have done more with.

[catien_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think every married woman with children who is overworked and unappreciated imagines just walking away from it all and just being ALONE. Delia Grindstead does just that, much to the shock of her family. The characters were written like real people, quirks and all, and jumped off the page, and the story was excellent right up until the end. So as not to spoil the book for others, I will only say that the ending was a disappointment and did not live up to the expectations that were created by the rest of the book.

[dawnlovesbooks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

i love anne tyler but i got bored with this one, although i loved the premise of the book.

[labibliophille · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While on a family beach vacation, 40 year old Baltimore resident Dee Grinstead strolls down the beach and disappears. She is wearing nothing but a bathing suit and carrying a tote bag containing her husband's robe and $500, the family's vacation money. It is hours before her family realizes that she is missing. Anne Tyler's bestseller (albeit of 14 years ago), follows Dee as she walks to the family's vacation rental cottage. Dee then begs a ride from a handyman, and gets out in the town of Bay Borough, Maryland.In short order, Dee acquires a place to live, a job, and a small wardrobe. By the time her family finds her, Dee is well ensconced in her new life, and has no wish to return to her husband, her three children and her sisters. They are, of course, hurt and uncomprehending, but this is not their story. It is Dee's. She feels unloved by her husband, and unappreciated by everyone else.When Dee had been gone over a year, she receives a wedding invitation from her daughter. When she returns to the family home, we begin to first learn about matters from the family's perspective.For me, the most telling part of the book is in the beginning. Dee's family is unable to describe her accurately to the police. No wonder Dee just up and left them! This book is sad and perplexing. Who hasn't wanted to escape their life, but who actually does?It's hard to imagine that this book could have been written by anyone but such a talented writer as the Pulitzer Prize winning Anne Tyler. And what does Ladder of Years mean? You'll have to read this for a very touching explanation.My only complaint is that, written 15 years ago, it does seem dated, and I keep wondering why the police don't just ping Dee's cell phone! Oh yeah-nobody in this story has one.

[downtownlibrarian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Haven't we all, at some point, wanted to walk away from it all? Here is the story of a woman who did just that. Very readable and an excellent book club pick.

[banderson1973 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've never forgotten the opening of this, when a missing woman's family is unable to accurately describe her. An excellent view of the complacency that sometimes occurs within families.

[caroline123_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ladder of Years is one of my favorite books ever. The idea of just walking away from everything and beginning again where nobody knows you is such an intriguing idea and wonderfully written by Anne Tyler.

[bardin_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don't know why I enjoy Anne Tyler as much as I do. All her books focus on a middle-aged woman living in Baltimore, usually with 3 children who are screwed up in some way or another, and not alot actually happens. However, her writing really is impressive. This book is my favorite, just because the story is the most interesting of all her books that I've read. I'm always a sucker for a person who just decides to completely abandon the life they are living.

[aimless22 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An intriguing look at marriage, womanhood and inner demons. The demons are not the type with horns and pitchforks. I would categorize them as those lurking thoughts that never seem to leave a person's consciousness. All the 'what ifs' of life.Delia Grinstead is a married mother of three with a settled life in the home she grew up in. Call it a mid-life crisis or just a spur-of-the-moment concept, but she walks down the beach while on the annual family vacation and just keeps going.She sets up a new life for herself in a small town. Perhaps too conveniently, she finds a place to live and a job within moments of getting to this town. The idea of running away, of starting from scratch is a romantic vision. Delia's main desire appears to be time alone and she does get that. But she also cannot fully escape into her new life.Each person who reads this story will have to determine for themselves which of her choices they would select. Someone who is feeling stuck in their current relationship may wish for one outcome while another who may not be in a relationship at all may choose the opposite. A man may foresee the final outcome while a woman may be disappointed or vice-versa.Just as each well realized character lives their own lives alongside Delia, each reader envisions their own wish for the end. What would you do? What would I do? How would my family react? Would my friends support or denounce me?The novel really makes readers think about possibilities, both for Delia and for themselves.

[porchsitter55 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely LOVED this quirky story. I laughed out loud....Anne Tyler is the best at making the simplest characters so memorable and so totally funny!

[cranmergirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My favorite Anne Tyler book! I read this many years ago but I have never forgotten what a fun read it was. It must have been during a time when I was feeling particularly under appreciated by my family, as I think most wives and mothers do at some point, because I found myself relating to the protagonist and cheering her on. This book should be read in the spirit in which I believe it was written and not taken too seriously. It's just a chick fantasy book with a happy ending. Enjoy!

[mhgatti · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ladder of Years tackles a weighty topic - an unappreciated wife/mother who, in an attempt to start her life over again free of her daily obligations, suddenly walks out on her family. Tyler writes it as a kind of fairy tale (an old wife's tale, maybe?), happening in a world where a missing person can start a new life undiscovered without leaving her home state or even changing her name.Even if you can suspend your disbelief of that setup it's hard to really care about the protagonist, who seems to have selfishly traded one predictable life for the comfort of a different, but just as predictable, life. Tyler keeps the story moving along at a good pace, so I never felt like I wanted to give up on the book, but I can't say it was a very satisfying read. A so-so novel from a great novelist, Ladder is my least enjoyable of Tyler's books so far.

[mrstreme · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Ladder of Years is a tale about Delia who suddenly leaves her family while vacationing at the beach. Tired of her unappreciative children, belittling husband and demanding sisters - plus still mourning the loss of her father - Delia impulsively leaves them on their beach blankets and takes off for a small town. There, she gets her first job, her first place and her first business clothes.Then, she learns that working for others is difficult and takes a job as a nanny for a young boy and his divorced father. In effect, she trades one family for another. I won't spoil the ending for you, but I will propose that Delia had the potential to really grow in her journey - but she didn't. She missed her opportunity to become the woman she wanted to be.I usually enjoy Anne Tyler's books because she develops her characters so beautifully. This is not the case in Ladder of Years. Overall, I was very disappointed with the story and character development. I felt no sense of attachment, usually losing my patience with Delia's simplemindedness. This is definitely not one of Tyler's best works.

[smallwonder56_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My favorite of all Anne Tyler's books, but you might have to be a mother to understand it. In this book she describes the ways in which women "disappear" into their families. Sooner or later, if you're a woman who thinks, you need to dig yourself back out again, and this is what the main character does. I read a book a few years ago about another woman who runs away from home and there's a line in the book that goes something like, "Show me a woman who's never fantasized about grabbing the keys, getting in the car and driving away and I'll show you a woman who doesn't know how to drive."

[tikilights_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book grew on me and I really started to like it as the plot progressed. In the beginning, Delia was beyond obnoxious, but she went through a subtle change in maturity that made her endearing in the end. I can understand the complaints about the book, but I think her escape to a new life of the same mediocrity was on the side of selfishness and immaturity, not her being a ditz. She needed to grow up, and her bad decisions at least helped her in that. However, I still don't like how she abandoned a total of 2 families in her "self-discovery".

[stacyinthecity · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is kind of a sad book about a wife who one day, without any forethought, just sort of walks away from it all. Almost by accident, that she doesn't realize what she has done until its done.What follows is a year of her self descovery. Who is she? She moved from her father's house to her husband's house without ever moving. She's never had a chance to try and make it on her own. She sets out to make her own life for herself and then must decide if she wants to ever return.