Kilbourn Public Library Book Club

The Kilbourn Public Library Book Club is reading Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler for its August selection. Noah's Compass is Anne Tyler's 18th novel. Set as usual in her native Baltimore, the novel concerns a fifth-grade, private-school teacher named Liam Pennywell.

Liam has been "downsized" from his employment at the age of 60 and subsequently suffers a traumatic injury that causes him to lose a bit of his memory. His life had seemed pretty empty before he left the job he disliked and now it seems even emptier.

Through some combinaion of initiative, fate and chance, Liam discovers in his search for his missing memory just how much he has repressed, and he finds himself open---to love and to hurt---at an age when he thought he'd left such emotions behind. "It's as if I've never been entirely present in my own life," he says.

When Anne Tyler was just starting to write Noah's Compass, a journalist asked her what it was about. She replied, "I'd like to write about a man who feels he has nothing more to expect from his life; but it's anybody's guess what the real subject will turn out to be in the end." Did that turn out to be the real subject of the book?

What does religion represent in the novel?

Do you think Liam is happy at the end of the book?

Let us know what you think!