Searching for Caleb by Anne Tyler
"Searching for Caleb" by Anne Tyler is a distinctive novel within her oeuvre, intertwining elements of a detective story with family drama. The narrative follows Daniel Peck and his granddaughter Justine as they embark on a quest to locate Daniel's long-lost half-brother, Caleb, who has been missing for sixty years. The story unfolds with the discovery of Caleb, yet true to Tyler’s intricate storytelling style, he ultimately departs from the Peck family again, amplifying the ongoing themes of discomfort and conformity within this tightly-knit clan.
The Peck family epitomizes a community bound by strict rules and customs, which shape the identities of its members from birth. Justine emerges as the protagonist, challenging these conventions and evolving throughout the tale. Her relationship with Duncan, the family's black sheep, propels her journey of self-discovery. As Justine navigates her desire for freedom against her family's expectations, the novel delves into the necessity of individuality within societal structures. Ultimately, Tyler presents a nuanced exploration of the balance between community and personal autonomy, suggesting that rebellion serves a vital role in the health of a community. This rich tapestry of characters and conflicts invites readers to reflect on their own relationships with conformity and self-expression.
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Searching for Caleb by Anne Tyler
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1976
Type of work: Novel
The Work
Searching for Caleb is unique among Tyler’s novels in that it is a detective story. The first scene in the book takes place on a train from Baltimore to New York City, where Daniel Peck and his granddaughter, Justine Peck, hope to find some news of Daniel’s half brother, Caleb Peck, who has been missing for sixty years. Caleb is finally found, thanks to a detective the family has hired; however, it is typical of Tyler’s circuitous plotting that at the end of the story Caleb once again leaves the Peck family, with whom he had never been comfortable.
The conflict in Searching for Caleb is typical for a Tyler novel. The community that demands conformity is the Peck family. As Duncan Peck, the black sheep of the family, says, the Pecks have dug a moat around themselves so that from their castle they can judge and disapprove of the rest of the world. From the time of their birth, Peck children are indoctrinated with rules of behavior. Pointing out to his cousin Justine Mayhew that she is wearing a hat only because it is a Peck practice, the observant Duncan lists all the family customs, such as wearing English riding boots and refusing to develop cavities, and all the family prejudices—against golf, plastic, and emotion, for example. So extensive a code can, like the moat which Duncan mentions, effectively keep non-Pecks at a distance.
It is Justine who develops most during the novel and who, therefore, should be considered the protagonist. Once she has accepted Duncan’s view of the Pecks and, incidentally, married him, Justine becomes one of Tyler’s energetic heroines, whose principle of life seems to be “When in doubt, change.” Because Duncan, too, is both imaginative and energetic, given to undertakings that begin with great promise and, unfortunately, soon bore him, thus ensuring their failure, it is perhaps as well that Justine can live the life of a gypsy, packing up the suitcases, giving away the cats, and moving on at a moment’s notice.
Justine cannot completely forget her Peck upbringing, however, and near the end of the novel she almost succumbs. For her, Duncan offers to settle down, take a job in Baltimore, and live like the rest of the Pecks. Interestingly, it is not merely her love for him that changes Justine’s original decision. It is also the feedback she gets from the Pecks, who seem less than enthusiastic about the possibility. Evidently, she discovers, the adult Pecks like to have one branch of the family living extravagant, colorful lives, just as the young Peck cousins had been delighted to have one of their number behaving like the outrageous Duncan. Both Caleb’s second disappearance and Justine’s arrangements for her family to travel with a carnival, then, are necessary for the existence of the fixed lives of the rest of the Pecks. In this exploration of her theme, Tyler has illustrated the fact that in order for a community to remain healthy, there must be individuals who refuse to follow its rules. Perhaps, too, if individuals are to know the joys of rebellion, there must be Pecks, providing rules for them to defy.
Bibliography
Bail, Paul. Anne Tyler: A Critical Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998.
Croft, Robert W. An Anne Tyler Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998.
Evans, Elizabeth. Anne Tyler. New York: Twayne, 1993.
Kissel, Susan S. Moving On: The Heroines of Shirley Ann Grau, Anne Tyler, and Gail Godwin. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1996.
Petry, Alice Hall. Critical Essays on Anne Tyler. New York: G. K. Hall, 1992.
Petry, Alice Hall. Understanding Anne Tyler. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1990.
Salwak, Dale. Anne Tyler as Novelist. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1994.
Stephens, C. Ralph. The Fiction of Anne Tyler. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990.
Sweeney, Susan Elizabeth. “Anne Tyler.” In The History of Southern Women’s Literature, edited by Carolyn Perry and Mary Louise Weaks. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002.