One warm summer's day at the beach, forty-year-old Cordelia Grinstead, dressed only in a swimsuit and beach robe, walks away from her family and just keeps on going.

After hitching a ride with a stranger to a new town where she knows no one, she reinvents herself as a single woman with no ties and begins living a new life altogether. But how long can she keep this up before her real life finds her?

**ANNE TYLER HAS SOLD OVER 8 MILLION BOOKS WORLDWIDE**

'Anne Tyler takes the ordinary, the small, and makes them sing' Rachel Joyce

'She knows all the secrets of the human heart' Monica Ali

'A masterly author' Sebastian Faulks

'I love Anne Tyler. I've read every single book she's written' Jacqueline Wilson

From the Pulitzer prize-winning Sunday Times bestseller Anne Tyler. Ladder of Years is now re-jacketed along with the rest of Tyler's books in striking new backlist style

About the Author

Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her bestselling novels include Breathing Lessons, The Accidental Tourist, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Ladder of Years, Back When We Were Grown-ups, Digging to America, A Spool of Blue Thread, Clock Dance, Redhead by the Side of the Road and French Braid.

In 1989 she won the Pulitzer Prize; in 1994 she was nominated by Roddy Doyle and Nick Hornby as 'the greatest novelist writing in English'; and in 2012 she received the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence. In 2015 A Spool of Blue Thread was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction and the Booker Prize; and in 2020 Redhead by the Side of the Road was longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Reviews
No one evokes the frustrations of marriage, family life and independence with such pinpoint accuracy as Tyler * Daily Mail *
It is difficult to imagine a writer so prodigiously gifted * Herald *
Another winner from Anne Tyler * Independent *
Every scene breathes with intimacy. Lifelikeness almost lifts the characters off the page...scintillating with joie de vivre * Sunday Times *
Utterly compelling...wonderfully satisfying...virtually flawless * Chicago Tribune *


Awards
Short-listed for Orange Prize for Fiction 1996.



Book Information
ISBN 9780099479413
Author Anne Tyler
Format Paperback
Page Count 448
Imprint Vintage
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 355g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 27mm