The Accidental Tourist: Simplified Edition

100 Pages·1998·4.56 MB·English

by  Anne Tyler

by Anne Tyler
Simplified by Susan Maingay
General Editors: Andy Hopkins and Jocelyn Potter
Addison Wesley Longman Limited
Edinburgh Gate, Harlow,
Essex CM20 2JE, England
and Associated Companies throughout the world.
©Anne Tyler 1985
This edition © Addison Wesley Longman Limited 1998
The right of Anne Tyler to be identified as author of The
Accidental Tourist has been asserted by her in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved; no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the Publishers.
This edition first published in Longman Fiction 1998
Second impression 1999
ISBN 0 582 27855 4
Set in Adobe Granjon 11.5pt
Printed in China
GCC/02
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Addison Wesley Longman Limited
for permission to use in the Word List definitions
adapted from the Longman Active Study Dictionary
of English © Longman Group UK Limited (1991).
Illustrations by Mark Shattock
Cover photographs © Addison Wesley Longman Limited/Gareth Boden,
Bruce Coleman Ltd/Jane Burton, Phoronica/SOA/Keo Muto,
Telegraph Colour Library
Cover design by Sage Associates
Introduction
Chapter 1 Macon Alone 1
Chapter 2 A Difficult Dog 8
Chapter 3 Muriel 17
Chapter 4 Sarah 25
Chapter 5 New York 32
Chapter 6 Macon and Muriel 38
Chapter 7 A New Kind of Life 48
Chapter 8 Alexander 56
Chapter 9 Rose's Wedding 63
Chapter 10 Coming Home 70
Chapter 11 Paris 75
Word List 86
Activities 87

Anne Tyler is one of America's best-known living writers of
fiction. She was born in Minneapolis in 1941. She grew up, though,
in North Carolina, and she studied Russian at Duke University in
the same state. While she was there, she became known for her
story writing. She left in 1961, at the age of nineteen, but she
continued to study at Columbia University in New York. Then she
returned to Duke University, to a job in the library. She met the
Iranian writer Taghi Modarressi, and they married in 1963.
Together they moved to Canada. In Montreal, Tyler worked in
McGill University's Law Library. She and her husband now live in
Baltimore. They have two daughters, who are both artists.
Anne Tyler has written thirteen books and a number of short
stories. Most of the action in her books takes place in Baltimore or
in small towns in the southern United States. Her early books (If
Morning Ever Comes (1964), The Tin Can Tree (1965) and A Slipping
Down Life (1970)) all describe people who face unhappiness and
loneliness inside their families. The writer returns to the subject of
family life again and again in her work. In her later books (The
Clock Winder (1972), Earthly Possessions (1977), Morgan's Passing
(1980), Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982) and Ladder of Years
(1995)) people love their families deeply but, at the same time, want
to get away from them. Breathing Lessons (1988) tells of a single day
in the marriage of Ira and Maggie Moran.
The Accidental Tourist (1985) is another story of family life in the
USA today. It looks at two families who choose to live their lives in
different ways. For one family, life is quiet and surprises are
The Accidental Tourist
unwelcome; the other family seems to enjoy disorder, noise and the
unexpected.
Macon Leary is a writer of travel guides who hates travelling.
At home he has an ordered existence. But his son is killed in a
shooting at a restaurant. Then his wife leaves him, and he finds
himself alone. His son's dog, Edward, refuses to listen to him. (The
dog, Anne Tyler says, comes from real life: her own family had a
very protective animal like him. The dog succeeded in keeping
visitors out of the house, but it also kept all the family in!)
Macon turns for help to Muriel, the loud and colourful dog
trainer from the Meow-Bow Animal Hospital. The story of
Macon, Muriel and Macon's wife, Sarah, is a journey of self-
discovery for them all.
The Accidental Tourist was already a successful book when it
was made into a very popular film, with the actors William Hurt,
Geena Davis and Kathleen Turner.
Macon Alone
After his wife left him, Macon felt very strange. He was surprised
that the house didn't seem larger now. But it didn't. In fact, it felt
more crowded. The windows became smaller, the rooms became
lower. He felt too tall.
Now he had a chance to change things in the house. It was
important to keep things tidy. Sarah never understood this. And
she washed the dishes too often. That used too much water. Macon
thought it was important to save water. He started to wash the
dishes only three times a week. He also began to have his bath at
night, before he went to bed. In this way he could wash his clothes
in the same water. He knew this all made sense. But sometimes he
felt that Sarah was in the room with him. She was watching him
and laughing.
Most of his work was done at home. Perhaps he worried so
much about keeping his house tidy for that reason. Macon was a
writer of travel books, guidebooks for business people. This
sometimes seemed very strange to him, because Macon hated
travel. But he wrote for people who also hated travel. His readers
only travelled because they had to. When they were in a foreign
city, they wanted to be at home. They wanted to feel that they were
really in America. In his guidebooks — Accidental Tourist in
France, Accidental Tourist in Germany — Macon helped them to do
this. "I am happy to say," he wrote, "that it is possible now to buy
Kentucky Fried Chicken in Stockholm."
"Of course I'm all right," he told his sister on the telephone.
"No, she didn't leave me. We discussed it like adults and decided
not to live together. That's all." But time passed and Macon did not
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feel any better. He began to ask himself if the unhappiness was ever
going to end. He didn't eat real meals any more. When he was
hungry he drank a glass of milk. Or he ate some ice cream. He
seemed to be losing weight and his hair grew long.
Of course he was all right — but his nights were terrible.
He dreamed of Ethan. Ethan went to summer camp when he
was twelve — a year ago almost exactly. He was in the top age
group — a tall, fair-haired boy with an open, friendly face.
Don't think about it.
He was killed in a Burger Bonanza restaurant on his second
night at camp. It was hard to understand. The man who killed
Ethan did not come to the restaurant to kill. He came to steal. He
took the money and was ready to leave. But before he went he
decided to shoot every person there through the back of the head.
The people in the summer camp did not know that Ethan was in
the restaurant with a friend. They thought that he was safely in his
tent. Why didn't they check? And why did Sarah let Ethan leave
home? Why did Macon agree? Why did Ethan ... ?
Don't think about it.
In the daytime he continued with his work. His publisher
telephoned. It was time to go to London again. It was time to
rewrite his guidebook, Accidental Tourist in England.
He left for the airport two hours early because he hated being in
a hurry. He called the dog, a Welsh corgi.* The dog was going with
him to the vet's, but the little animal did not know that yet. He sat
next to Macon happily in the car, waiting for his walk. Macon
talked to him calmly. "Hot, isn't it, Edward? Do you want the
* Welsh corgi: a kind of dog. Corgis are small and have very short legs.