Redhead By the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler: book review

Redhead by the Side of the Road (2020) is set in Baltimore in America.

Mica Mortimer in his early 40s, a loner, a creature of habits, and self-employed as a computer repairer working from his apartment and making house or business visits – he calls himself the “TECH HERMIT.” He has a girlfriend Cass of three years.

He is focused on helping people with their computer problems. He has a loyal customer base, such as elderly Mrs Prescott, and students, and small business owners.

He has his own daily routine, which keeps his life calm and steady and consistent. But then, one after the other, he experiences a series of issues. His girlfriend is facing eviction from her apartment, and 18-year-old Brink Bartell Adams confronts Mica and tells him that he is his father due to his long-past relationship with his mother Lorna.

These are other people’s problems, and he doesn’t want to be involved in their problems. He doesn’t want to change his routine because of other people. But slowly, other people throw his orderly life into disorderly chaos. Everyone wants him to solve their problems – their technical problems, their relationship problems, and their life problems.

How does he cope with this?

This story has a gradual development of plot and character in an okay-sort-of plot.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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