Anne Tyler is my favorite way to escape for a couple of days. Her descriptions are just genius. Unlike her other books, this one had more of a plot resolution at the end.
Always the same Anne Tyler: a lot of people you can identify yourself with or not, interesting characters and stories, but also too evanescence, to feel that world a new world for you.
This is one of her earlier works, but the plot and characters are so inventive. It clunks along at times and gets into the geneology of the family a bit too much for my tastes, but overall it's a fine read.