Redhead by the Side of the Road
ANNE TYLER
(CHATTO & WINDUS, 192 PP, £14.99)
Tablet bookshop price £13.49 • Tel 020 7799 4064

Micah Mortimer, aka Tech Hermit, pays house-calls on the people of Baltimore who are stymied by their computers. He’s also a man of fixed routine: Friday is vacuuming day, Monday is floor-mopping day or, as he likes to call it, talking to himself in foreign accents as he works, “zee dreaded moppink of zee floors”.

Anne Tyler’s twenty-third novel is much shorter and less expansive than recent works such as Clock Dance or A Spool of Blue Thread, with a smaller cast of characters, and an ­occasionally removed, almost cynical quality. “Does he ever stop to consider his life?” the omniscient narrator asks about Micah, who remains centre stage throughout. “Such a ­narrow and limited man ...”