''Morgan's Passing'' is a 1980 novel by

Anne Tyler Anne Tyler (born October 25, 1941) is an American novelist, short story writer, and literary critic. She has published twenty-four novels, including '' Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant'' (1982), '' The Accidental Tourist'' (1985), and ''Breath ...

. It won the 1980

Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize The Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize is a literary award A literary award or literary prize is an award presented in recognition of a particularly lauded literary piece or body of work. It is normally presented to an author. Organizations Most liter ...

for Fiction and was nominated for both the

American Book Awards The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "the ...

and the

National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, a man in search of an identity in which he feels comfortable. One day, he meets a young couple, Emily and Leon Meredith, performing their puppet show in public. Emily goes into labor right after the show, and Morgan (posing as Doctor Morgan) delivers the baby in the backseat of his car. Over the next couple of years, an increasingly bored Morgan frequently runs into the couple "accidentally on purpose." He stalks them and over a period of time becomes their friend. Leon and Emily are not the happy couple that they appeared to be; Leon is a frustrated actor who has been reduced to a puppeteer. Emily seems uncertain of what she wants but it isn't Leon. Morgan initially tries to befriend them both (and their daughter Gina) but over several years becomes entranced with Emily. He spends more and more time with his new companions, and his wife and daughters barely notice his absence. Eventually Emily and Morgan sneak around their spouses, she becomes pregnant by Morgan, and they run off together to a new life, Morgan finally content as he assumes Leon's identity.

Reviews

John Leonard of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' said, "Morgan, like a novelist, wants to be everybody else in order to look at himself through innocent eyes, to be charmed....Miss Tyler, witty, civilized, curious, with her radar ears and her quill pen dipped on one page in acid and on the next in orange liqueur, is asking whether art is adequate to the impersonations life insists on, death absolves. She is a wonderful writer." In ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

'',

James Wolcott James Wolcott (born December 10, 1952) is an American journalist, known for his critique of contemporary media. Wolcott is the cultural critic for '' Vanity Fair'' and contributes to ''The New Yorker''. He had his own blog on ''Vanity Fair'' ma ...

compared Tyler to a "sentry or a detective hoseems to notice everything: the pale fluorescent gloom of laundromats, pockets filled with lint-covered jellybeans, the smell of crabcakes and coconut oil on a Delaware beach, grapy veins in the calves of middle-aged mothers. As a chronicler of domestic fuss, Tyler can be compared to John Updike."

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morgan's Passing 1980 American novels Alfred A. Knopf books Novels by Anne Tyler Novels set in Baltimore

Reviews

See also

References

External links