Back When We Were Grownups

Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler is a story of
Rebecca Davitch a middle-aged woman who has been running a
catering business for years and hosting parties in her
house. She meets Joe at one of these parties a divorced
man with three daughters and after falling in love they
get married. After six years of marriage Joe dies and
Rebecca is left alone. She begins to feel like her life
has been a mistake and starts to contemplate how different
her life could have been if she had made different choices
in the past. Rebecca decides to visit her hometown in
Virginia and reconnect with her past hoping to gain
clarity and find a way to move on with her life. The novel
explores themes of regret the search for identity and the
complexities of family and relationships. The novel was
published by The Ballantine Publishing Group in 2001 and
spans 328 pages.