Three Days in June - by Anne Tyler (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

"Three Days in June is like reading a hug." --Minneapolis Star Tribune

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job--or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn't even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail's ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max's past.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life, Three Days in June is a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer at the height of her powers.

Review Quotes

"Tyler lights up the space between people, and shows how it feels to be on the outside looking in. This is her superpower." --New York Times

"Another delightfully assured exploration of the way sorrow and joy meld together in the crucible of family life. . . . [It] seems to defy the conventions of romantic comedy until it finally, gloriously gives in. . . . What a treat to listen in on this banter. . . . Few writers can weave the threads of dialogue with such casual brilliance as Tyler. . . . She and her shelf of celebrated novels sit confidently at the end of a circuitous line that winds back through Jane Austen's novels to Shakespeare's comedies." --Washington Post

"Spot on and often very funny. . . . Nobody understands human nature--the yearning, the envy, the sadness, the regret--better than Tyler. And nobody understands the complexities of love the way she does." --Boston Globe

"Deeply compassionate and very witty. . . . The bad news: Anne Tyler can't possibly write forever. The good news: Her latest novel proves that she's still inimitable and still providing fresh perspectives on ordinary people." --Los Angeles Times

"This is storytelling at its very best." --Rachel Joyce, author of Miss Benson's Beetle

"Three Days in June is like reading a hug. [Tyler] embraces us from the very first sentence. . . . You'll want to stay in the warmth of her storytelling. Let it hug you, too, and don't be afraid to give it a snuggle back. . . . Tyler's pacing is incomparable." --Minneapolis Star Tribune

"A wise, wonderful book. . . . Three Days in June takes two days to read, but it envelops you just the same, her characters so alive they could be sitting next to you telling you what happened to them last Tuesday--and the ending is a beauty." --The Observer (London)

"Winningly deft. . . . For more than 60 years her clear-eyed but kindly approach to people moving through recognizable daily life has enabled her to serve up a convincing combination of sharpness, tenderness, mild satire and rueful comedy, not just in a single book, but sometimes in a single sentence." --The Times (London)

"As word gets out, all fiction lovers seeking a smart, sunny novel will ask for this one. . . . [A] delectable, tightly focused, and piquant comedy. . . . Tyler is exceptionally adept at exhilarating dialogue and the nuances of relationships. . . . With every character, cat included, incisively and vividly realized, and myriad preoccupations and emotions limned with nimble wit and empathy, this is a keen delight." --Booklist

"Sweet, sharp, and satisfying. . . . Tyler's touch is as delicate, her empathy for human beings and all their quirks as evident in her 25th work of fiction as it was in her first, published an astonishing 60 years ago." --Kirkus Reviews

"As always, it's sublimely written and beautifully observed." --Good Housekeeping

"Anne Tyler's novels plumb the everyday to make magic. . . . Beneath the tidy crust of her plainsong sentences, as ever, seethes the lava of familial and marital relations. . . . Tyler is too deep and nimble a writer, of course, to skate dramedy grooves, though much of her droll banter would shine in a screenplay; she ballasts Three Days in June with the hard weight of life. (Not for nothing did she major in Russian literature.) . . . Family life [is] the source of the unexpectedly heart-busting poignancy at the novel's close. Are families absolutely, intrinsically interesting? Updike asked. Anne Tyler's are. Just ask the people at the coffee shop who saw me wiping my eyes as I closed this novel shut." --Garden & Gun

"Three Days in June is a valentine to readers. It's funny and touching. . . . There isn't a wrong move in it. It's the literary equivalent of a box of chocolates with no duds. . . . If you're looking for a deeply humane writer abounding in wit and wisdom, read Anne Tyler." --Christian Science Monitor

"With flairs for ingenuity and dexterity, she creates a tapestry of family issues. . . . In the words of singer Celine Dion, perhaps for Gail 'it's all coming back for me now.' As it will for Tyler's devoted admirers." --Richmond Times-Dispatch

"Tyler's trademark witticisms and creation of vulnerable characters shows us just how precious life can be." --Minnesota Monthly

"Written in Anne Tyler's warm and wonderful style, this is a heart-warming story you'll fall in love with. . . . Witty, thoughtful and brilliantly character-driven." --Woman and Home

About the Author