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{{Short description|1985 novel by Anne Tyler}}
{{About|the novel|the film adaptation|The Accidental Tourist (film)|the hoax photograph|tourist guy}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox book
| name          = The Accidental Tourist
| title_orig    =
| translator    =
| image         = AccidentalTouristbookcover.jpg
| caption       = First edition cover
| author        = Anne Tyler
| illustrator   =
| cover_artist  = [[Fred Marcellino]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pulcinellapress.com/book_jackets.php|title=Book Jackets by Fred Marcellino|work=pulcinellapress.com|access-date=26 May 2015}}</ref>
| country       = United States
| language      = English
| series        =
| genre         = 
| publisher     = [[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]]
| release_date  = August 12, 1985
| english_release_date =
| media_type    = Print (hardback & paperback)
| pages         = 355 
| isbn =  9780345452009
| dewey= 813/.54 19
| congress= PS3570.Y45 A64 1985
| oclc= 12432313
| preceded_by   =
| followed_by   =
}}
'''''The Accidental Tourist''''' is a 1985 novel by [[Anne Tyler]] that was a finalist for the [[Pulitzer Prize]] and won the [[National Book Critics Circle Award]] for Fiction in 1985 and the [[Ambassador Book Award]] for Fiction in 1986. The novel was adapted into a [[The Accidental Tourist (film)|1988 award-winning film]] starring [[William Hurt]], [[Kathleen Turner]], and [[Geena Davis]], for which Davis won an [[Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress|Academy Award]].

==Plot summary==
Set in [[Baltimore, Maryland]], the plot revolves around Macon Leary, a writer of travel guides whose son has been killed in a shooting at a fast-food restaurant. He and his wife, Sarah, separately lost in grief, find their marriage disintegrating until she eventually moves out. When he becomes incapacitated due to a fall involving his disturbed dog and one of his crazy inventions, Macon returns to the family home to stay with his eccentric siblings, sister Rose and brothers Porter and Charles, whose odd habits include alphabetizing the groceries in the kitchen cabinets and ignoring the ringing telephone. When Macon's publisher, Julian, comes to visit, he finds himself attracted to Rose. They eventually marry, though Rose later moves back in with her brothers, followed months later by Julian, who becomes part of the family.

Macon hires Muriel Pritchett, an unusual woman in her own right, to train his unruly dog, and soon finds himself drifting into a relationship with her and her sickly son, Alexander. In stark contrast to Sarah, Muriel is brash, garrulous, unsophisticated, and fond of garish outfits; and in stark contrast to the relatively passive Macon, she is strong and assertive. Despite his resistance to a new commitment, Macon finds himself drawn towards Muriel, surprised by her perceptiveness, strength and optimism, and ability to listen. Increasingly attached to both Muriel and Alexander, he moves into their little house in a seedy part of town. Macon finds that he loves "the surprise of her, and also the surprise of himself when he was with her. In the foreign country that was Singleton Street he was an entirely different person." When Sarah learns of these developments, she decides she and Macon should reconcile, forcing him to come to a decision about their future.

==Reception==

In ''[[The New York Times]]'', [[Larry McMurtry]] says, "Tyler shows, with a fine clarity, the mingling of misery and contentment in the daily lives of her families, reminds us how alike—and yet distinct—happy and unhappy families can be. Muriel Pritchett is as appealing a woman as Miss Tyler has created; and upon the quiet Macon she lavishes the kind of intelligent consideration that he only intermittently gets from his own womenfolk".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/04/19/specials/tyler-tourist.html|title=Life is a Foreign Country|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=April 28, 2013}}</ref>

[[Michiko Kakutani]] wrote, "It is from just such private lives that Miss Tyler herself has spun her own minutely detailed art, rendering them with such warmth and fidelity that her readers, too, are startled into a new appreciation of the ordinary and mundane. Like [[John Updike]], she has taken as her fictional territory that sprawling American landscape of the middle class, and in 10 novels now, she has claimed as her special province the family in all its contrary dimensions."<ref>Kakutani, Michiko (August 28, 1985)[https://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/28/books/books-of-the-times-219259.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%221%22%3A%22RI%3A10%22%7D] "Books of the Times," ''New York Times''</ref>

In contrast to most critics, John Blades, in the ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'', wrote a scathing review: "In an age of dissonant, aggressive fiction, Tyler has established herself as a voice of sweet reason, the heiress apparent to [[Eudora Welty]] as the earth mother of American writers.  For all Tyler's seductive qualities—the great charm and coziness of her fictional universe, her compassion for misfits, and, not least, her soothing, almost tranquilizing voice—there is something annoyingly synthetic about the work itself. However wise and wonderful, her fiction is seriously diluted by the promiscuous use of artificial sweeteners, a practice that has made Tyler our foremost NutraSweet novelist."<ref>Blades, John (July 20, 1986)[https://www.chicagotribune.com/1986/07/20/for-nutrasweet-fiction-tyler-takes-the-cake/] “For Nutrasweet Fiction, Tyler Takes the Cake,” ''Chicago Tribune''</ref>

[[Edward Hoagland]] wrote in the ''New York Times'', "Macon Leary, the magnificently decent yet ''ordinary'' man in ''The Accidental Tourist,'' follows logic to its zany conclusions, and in doing this justifies...the catch-as-catch-can nature of much of life, making us realize that we are probably missing people of mild temperament in our own acquaintance who are heroes, too, if we had Ms. Tyler's eye for recognizing them....Muriel, the man-chaser and man-saver of ''The Accidental Tourist,'' ranks among the more endearing characters of postwar literature."<ref>Hoagland, Edward (September 11, 1988)[https://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/11/books/about-maggie-who-tried-too-hard.html?pagewanted=1] "About Maggie, Who Tried Too Hard," ''New York Times''</ref>

==References==
{{reflist|30em}}

* {{Cite book |last=Joseph |first=Maria |year=2005 |title=Anne Taylor's The Accidental Tourist |location=Melbourne |publisher=Insight Publications |ISBN=9781921088049 |oclc=224668440}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20080220201447/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,959827,00.html Innocent with an Explanation, ''The Accidental Tourist'' by Anne Tyler] Review by ''Time Magazine''

{{Anne Tyler}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Accidental Tourist, The}}
[[Category:1985 American novels]]
[[Category:Ambassador Book Award–winning works]]
[[Category:American novels adapted into films]]
[[Category:Alfred A. Knopf books]]
[[Category:Novels by Anne Tyler]]
[[Category:Novels set in Baltimore]]
[[Category:National Book Critics Circle Award–winning works]]