Everyone wants a book that keeps them glued to the page. The ones that have me reading past bedtime are stories about family or some kind of skewed relationship or a character that’s hungering for something—whether it’s love or revenge. The writers of these books created characters that are real in their heartache. Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was such a character. She wanted to get even for the hurts she experienced in life. Stieg Larsson portrayed her bruised soul so well his trilogy shot up to the top of the best seller list.
A master of telling stories with characters full of anguish is Anne Tyler. I first read Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant decades ago, and have been a fan of hers ever since. She writes better than anyone I know about yearning. Yearning for love, for appreciation, and for understanding. She writes about how families—no matter how hard they try—get it wrong. At the time I read Dinner At the Homesick Restaurant—the book she says was her best—I was a newly graduated social worker, and of course, interested in what made families tick. Mine and others. No wonder her stories of broken families appealed to me.
When I recently read Anne Tyler’s book Ladder of Years, I was reminded again of her skill at painting lives that resonate with her readers. I was struck by how lost and confused her protagonist became as the years went by. Her yearning to be understood and loved was palpable. How so much that needed to be said was never said—either by her or her family.
It’s that same struggle that lit up the pages of the memoir 
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. We wept as the children suffered through their parents’ missteps. We also cried for the boy in his alcoholic family, depicted brilliantly by author Frank McCourt, in Angela\’s Ashes. But not every story about longing brings tears to the reader’s eyes. Some authors pepper their tales of woe with humour, and I did laugh out loud a number of times in Ladder of Years. And I also laughed and felt some sadness for the author’s struggles in that excellent memoir Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I was also relieved when she began to find her way.
And what about the old classics? Gone With The Wind and Madame Bovary are full of yearning. Strong female protagonists wishing for more.
What better way to hook the reader than write about yearning? When you think about the books you love, wasn’t it because you were intrigued by the characters’ desire and their attempts to get what they want? I’d love to hear what you think.
Great post, Diana. You’ve got me thinking about my characters and the characters in books I’ve read & loved….
It was interesting how the mother in Ladder of Years touched me. At first, I wasn’t sure where the story was going to go. But as it progressed, her yearning for what she was missing was so textured and deep, that I couldn’t help but be drawn in.