Unknowable: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler

Both the positive and the negative aspects of the strong, silent man stereotype come up in Anne Tyler’s novel Breathing Lessons.

Dec 12, 2024

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Married 28 years, the couple at the heart of Anne Tyler’s 1988 Pulitzer Prize-winning Breathing Lessons are clearly meant to show us something about long-run coupledom. So what does it mean when Maggie Moran refers to her husband Ira in the novel several times as mysteriously unknowable?

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Unknowable: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler

Both the positive and the negative aspects of the strong, silent man stereotype come up in Anne Tyler’s novel Breathing Lessons.

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