Word: muriel
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...quest to become a permanent guest at the "real" old-fashioned dinners he envies, Tyler has no pretensions about the claustrophobia bred by such intimacy. Beneath the respectable bourgeois values lies a barrenness that has decayed even the excitement of sex. Macon's instinctive response to the dogtrainer Muriel's aggressive passes is the urge to confess that ever since the separation from his wife, "sex...has turned (like milk...
Even when the mother is present in the home, there remains a suggestion of irresponsibility. Muriel, the dogtrainer, is sensitive to Macon's disapproving observation that she is bringing up Alexander, her illegitimate son, on a diet of television and Oodles of Noodles. Similarly, Macon silently reproaches his wife for having allowed Ethan to attend camp, despite his objections. The suggestion of her maternal irresponsibility echoes again later in her rejection of Macon's conciliatory proposal to have another baby to make up for their loss...
Macon is the most engaging member of this sweetly perverse clan. He may be master of the minimal, but he is inept in the face of vitality. Edward keeps him hopping. His boss insists on launching him in search of the latest in bland and drab. An admirably persistent Muriel steers him into her life, which includes a sickly son. Despite incompatible styles, the arrangement works: Muriel tames the dog, and Macon invigorates...
...like the wings of a baby bird." It seems appropriate that he should look the way he feels, until an old woman points out that he has been given her much smaller crutches by mistake. Elsewhere, life imitates sitcoms. The Accidental Tourist reluctantly takes a business trip to Paris. Muriel, uninvited, tags along; a tense Macon wrenches his back. When Sarah unexpectedly shows up to nurse him, he is forced to utter the book's bottom line: "This is not the way it looks...
...Accidental Tourist brings Tyler up to date: girl leaves boy, boy keeps house. Macon Leary's unassertiveness is in timely contrast to Sarah's decisiveness and Muriel's zeal. Ethan's violent death is right off the 6 o'clock news. Even Macon finally proves conspicuously contemporary by taking charge of his life. The move seems a bit too abrupt for a character whose susceptibility to drift has been so carefully established. But this is a minor disappointment in a novel animated by witty invention and lively personalities, including Edward the feisty corgi, whose bite is just...