Ladder of Years

Baltimore Woman Disappears During Family Vacation declares the headline. Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead is last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing nothing more than a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To her husband and three almost-grown children, she has vanished without trace or reason. But for Delia, who feels like a tiny gnat buzzing around her family's edges, "walking away from it all" is not a premeditated act, but an impulse that will lead her into a new, exciting, and unimagined life. ANNE TYLER was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the author of more than twenty novels, including The Beginner's Goodbye, A Spool of Blue Thread, and Vinegar Girl. Among her may novels to receive literary acclaim, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, alongside The Accidental Tourist, entered as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, while her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.