Anne Tyler – French Braid: paradox of family bonds

Book Club Summary and Discussion Questions for December

Summary

Anne Tyler’s French Braid traces six decades in the life of the Garrett family of Baltimore, showing how love, habit, and misunderstanding weave people together long after they drift apart. The story opens in the summer of 1959, when Robin and Mercy Garrett take their three children on their only family vacation. Robin wants order and tradition; Mercy quietly longs to breathe, to paint, to become more than a wife. Their daughters, Alice and Lily, are opposites—Alice responsible and watchful, Lily impulsive and changeable—while their youngest, David, is a self-contained boy who prefers silence to argument. During that week by the lake, tiny cracks appear in the family pattern—nothing dramatic, yet they signal the slow loosening of the braid

thatbindsthem.

As the years pass, those faint lines of separation deepen. Mercy moves her painting supplies into a studio across town and, almost without notice, begins sleeping there. Robin continues his predictable routines, puzzled by how quietly his family has changed. Alice becomes a steady mother and the keeper of family memories; Lily moves from relationship to relationship, chasing warmth and excitement; David detaches from the family almost completely, building a life defined by distance. Still, each of them carries the imprint of the others—the invisible pull of shared history.

Tyler follows them through marriages, deaths, holidays, and brief reunions, all rendered with her characteristic calm precision. There are no villains, no melodramas—only ordinary choices that shape a lifetime. The novel’s title becomes its metaphor: when you undo a French braid, the hair still holds the waves of its weave. Likewise, even when families appear separate, the pattern of connection remains.

By the final chapters, set in the 2020s, a new generation of Garretts navigates a modern world, yet echoes of Robin and Mercy still ripple through them. Tyler suggests that family is never something we escape; it is something we continue to carry—sometimes lightly, sometimes with weight, always marked by the touch of those who came before.

Discussion Questions

1. What does the image of a French braid tell us about the way family connections work over time?

What the Image of a French Braid Tells Us About Family Connections Over Time

A French braid serves as a powerful metaphor for how family connections evolve and persist across generations, revealing several profound truths about the nature of familial bonds and inherited patterns.

The Structure of Interwoven Strands

The defining characteristic of a French braid—where strands progressively weave together to create an increasingly complex pattern—mirrors how family members become twisted and interconnected over time. In Anne Tylers novel "French Braid," this image captures a central insight: families are not simple arrangements but rather complicated structures where each new generation takes in additional strands, becoming more intricate and entangled as the pattern develops. Each family member represents a strand that weaves in and out, never existing independently but always part of the larger whole.goeasternoregon​

The Transmission of Behaviors Across Generations

One of the most significant lessons the French braid metaphor teaches is about inherited patterns and how attitudes filter down through families. Behaviors and emotional responses learned in one generation become woven into the next, often so seamlessly that family members dont recognize the continuity. In the Garrett family portrayed in Tylers novel, the parents pattern of avoiding confrontation and maintaining surface appearances becomes replicated in their children and grandchildren. The mother moves away but never speaks about it; the son leaves for college without telling his family; the grandson hides his romantic relationships—each generation unconsciously weaving the familys patterns of avoidance into their own lives.goeasternoregon​

The Problem of Distance Within Connection

Paradoxically, the French braid metaphor reveals that families can appear emotionally distant while remaining structurally inseparable. As one observer notes in Tylers work, the Garrett family members look "so scattered, and so lonesome" even when together, as if they are strangers rather than relatives. Yet despite this emotional distance, the effects are lasting and binding. Characters come to realize that "youre never really free" from your family; "the ripples are crimped in forever." The braid remains intact even when its individual strands seem isolated.bookertalk+1​

Cultural Continuity Through Repetition and Practice

Beyond the literary metaphor, braids themselves carry profound meaning across cultures regarding how knowledge, identity, and belonging pass through families and communities. Across African, Indigenous American, and other traditions, braiding has been understood as an intergenerational practice where technique, meaning, and cultural identity move through hands, eyes, and shared practice. The act of creating and recreating braids—wearing them, undoing them, and making them again—establishes continuity through "repetition" rather than fixed preservation. This suggests that family connections similarly endure through constant renewal and revisiting of shared patterns rather than static maintenance.privatelabelextensions+1​

The Complexity of Growing Tighter

As a French braid progresses, it becomes increasingly complex and dense. Similarly, families become more complicated as they extend through time, with emotional legacies compounding rather than simplifying. Early decisions about how conflicts are handled, how emotions are expressed, and what truths are kept silent become the foundation upon which future generations build. The metaphor suggests that family connection doesnt diminish with time or distance; instead, it accumulates layers of meaning, influence, and invisible bonds.

Connection Despite Avoidance and Silence

Perhaps most poignantly, the French braid metaphor illuminates a paradox at the heart of family life: bonds persist even when—or perhaps especially when—family members work hardest to avoid confrontation. The novel notes that family members achieve remarkable feats to maintain surface appearances and avoid difficult conversations, yet these very silences become part of the familys braided pattern. The ties remain, even when family members unbraid themselves emotionally from each other and drift apart.goeasternoregon​

The image ultimately teaches that family connections over time are neither simple nor easily categorized. They are complex geometries of interweaving influence, inherited patterns, emotional distance that coexists with permanent connection, and silent transmissions of behavior that shape future generations without explicit instruction.

 

2. How does Tyler use small, everyday moments instead of big events to show change in the Garretts’ lives?

Anne Tyler demonstrates masterful storytelling by eschewing dramatic plot events in favor of intimate, quotidian details that accumulate over time to reveal profound character transformation and family evolution. The novel operates on the principle that seemingly insignificant moments and gradual behavioral shifts carry far more weight than conventionally dramatic incidents in shaping lives and relationships.

The 1959 Lakeside Holiday: A Pivotal Ordinary Moment

The novels most structurally important scene demonstrates Tylers technique perfectly. The Garretts first—and notably, only—family vacation to Deep Creek Lake in 1959 contains no major plot events, yet it reverberates through the entire family structure for decades afterward. Robin attempts to teach seven-year-old David to swim in what seems like a routine parental task, but this ordinary moment of instruction becomes laden with unspoken tension and expectation that shapes Davids relationship to his father and his sense of belonging in the family indefinitely. The incident itself may not seem "overly dramatic," yet Tyler demonstrates that "even a relatively small incident can lead to deep-seated resentment" that ripples through subsequent generations.travelcocktail+1​

What makes this technique so powerful is that the vacation contains no melodrama—no arguments, no confrontations, no memorable crises. Instead, there are simply small observations: Alice is helpful but bossy, Lily becomes infatuated with an older man at a nearby cabin, and David withdraws into himself. Yet by the novels progression, readers understand that Lily eventually recovers from her holiday heartbreak while Davids withdrawal during this single week becomes a defining characteristic that persists through his adolescence and adulthood. The change is not announced; it emerges through accumulated detail.judithmckinnon​

Mercys Almost-Invisible Escape from Marriage

Perhaps the most distinctive example of Tylers use of everyday moments appears in Mercys gradual departure from her marriage. After David leaves for college, Mercy rents a studio room above a neighbors garage—a mundane real estate transaction—and begins spending increasing amounts of time there. What unfolds is a masterclass in showing change through small, repeated actions rather than dramatic confrontation.lonesomereader+1​

Tyler describes Mercys escape with meticulous attention to quotidian detail: she packs lightly so that no one looking in her bureau drawers would suspect anything was missing. She doesnt announce her separation; she doesnt confront her husband Robin. Instead, she gradually spends more nights at the studio until eventually she is there full time. The entire transformation of her life—from wife and mother in the family home to independent artist living separately—occurs through a series of barely-noticed details and small decisions about which clothes to pack, which nights to stay away, and when to feed the landlords cat.orangeblossomordinary+3​

This approach reveals a crucial truth about how life actually changes: not through grand gestures or explicit moments of decision, but through the accumulation of small compromises, quiet choices, and mundane behavioral shifts that, taken together, constitute a complete life transformation. No dramatic scene exists where Mercy announces she is leaving; instead, her transformation is shown through her "activities to slowly move from the family home to her art studio," which are "both funny and sad."travelcocktail​

Hidden Incidents That Shape Family Patterns

Tyler uses small, often understated moments to demonstrate how patterns of avoidance and emotional distance become embedded in family behavior. When Mercy learns that her daughter Lilys marriage is faltering, her primary worry is not her daughters wellbeing but rather how to prevent Lily from moving into the studio. This quiet revelation—buried in what might appear to be a minor scene—speaks volumes about Mercys priorities and suggests the emotional detachment that characterizes the Garrett familys internal dynamics.nytimes​

Similarly, the patterns of secrecy established by Mercys quiet departure ripple through the next generation: David unexpectedly marries a colleague and informs his family only after the fact; Lily hides her third marriage; Eddie, a grandson, never discloses to the family that he is gay. Each of these revelations emerges not through dramatic confrontation scenes but through ordinary moments when family members are encountered and their life circumstances are casually mentioned or discovered.nytimes​

The Opening Train Station Scene

The novel itself opens with a deceptively simple moment that encapsulates Tylers entire approach. In 2010, Serena encounters someone at a train station who might be her cousin Nicholas, but she is so uncertain that she wont even approach him to confirm his identity. This ordinary scene—two people waiting for a train—reveals the fragmentation of the Garrett family, their emotional distance from one another, and their tendency not to reach out or confirm connections. Yet nothing dramatic happens in this scene; it consists merely of observation and the absence of action.necromancyneverpays.wordpress+1​

The Cumulative Architecture of Change

What makes Tylers technique so effective is that readers gradually realize the truth her light touch conceals: "while it often seems like nothing much happens, in reality, everything does." The novel spans six decades, yet contains no major catastrophes, no scandal, no obvious turning points. Instead, there are repeated small moments—meals at tables, conversations that touch on nothing substantial, observations about what family members are wearing or how theyre standing—that collectively build a portrait of lives lived in proximity but with emotional distance.lonesomereader+1​

By focusing on quotidian routines and "repeated interactions," Tyler captures how families actually function over time. Change occurs not through defining moments but through the steady accumulation of small choices, quiet withdrawals, unspoken decisions, and ordinary days that, when viewed retrospectively across decades, reveal themselves to have been transformative. The novels structure—jumping forward seven to seventeen years at a time between chapters—mirrors this approach: readers encounter characters at different life stages and understand change not through watching it happen but through observing its effects in subsequent snapshots of ordinary life.orangeblossomordinary+1​

 

3. Why does Mercy slowly separate herself from the household, and do you see her as selfish or courageous?

Mercys slow separation from her household stems from a fundamental conflict between her identity as an artist and the constraints of domestic life as a 1950s housewife, making the question of whether she is selfish or courageous deliberately ambiguous—Tyler seems to suggest she is both, and that this ambiguity reflects the complexity of female autonomy and self-determination.

The Origins of Unfulfilled Dreams

Mercys motivation is rooted in sacrifice made decades earlier. She spent a year and a half at art school in Baltimore before abandoning her dream of studying in Paris to marry the dependable Robin and raise three children. For nearly three decades, she remains a housewife who paints only when she has time—which is almost never. Her artistic aspirations never fully disappear; they simmer beneath the surface of her domestic duties. Only when her youngest child David departs for college does the possibility of reclaiming a life for herself suddenly become tangible and urgent.readherlikeanopenbook+1​

Mercy begins to rent what she ostensibly frames as a studio for her paintings, but it becomes something far more significant: a space where she can exist as something other than a wife and mother. This is not a dramatic declaration of independence or a confrontational departure. Instead, it is a quiet, almost furtive claiming of space—one pair of clothes at a time, one night away at a time, each small action carefully calibrated to avoid provoking explicit family conflict.nytimes+1​

The Architecture of Avoiding Confrontation

What emerges from Mercys slow separation is not primarily desire for freedom in an abstract sense, but rather an intense aversion to the direct confrontation that explicit departure would require. She never discusses her separation with Robin. He never explicitly asks about it. Their marriage continues technically on paper while existing physically as two separate lives. She returns to make his breakfast, she does his laundry, she maintains the appearance of marriage—all while building an increasingly permanent life elsewhere.bookertalk+2​

As one observer notes about Mercys thinking, she mentally urges Robin: "Oh, leave! Just leave! How long can it take to just go?" yet she herself cannot make that final move toward true departure. This reveals a paradox at the heart of her character: she desperately wants autonomy but cannot bear to disrupt the family structure or cause her husband explicit pain. Her solution is the "semi-detached marriage"—a compromise that allows her the space she needs while technically preserving family stability.necromancyneverpays.wordpress+1​

The Question of Selfishness

The case for viewing Mercy as selfish is compelling and has convinced several careful readers. She becomes increasingly focused on her own needs to the point of aesthetic extremity—she envisions her future life as taking place in an "empty room," resisting even basic necessities like a teakettle and dishcloth. When her daughter Lilys marriage falters, Mercys "primary worry was how to stop Lily from moving into the studio," suggesting that her concern for her own space supersedes concern for her struggling daughter.necromancyneverpays.wordpress+1​

More damningly, she agrees to care for her landlords cat, forms an apparently pleasant relationship with the animal ("Desmond turned out to be less intrusive than shed feared"), and yet, when the landlord asks her to keep the cat permanently, she immediately places the animal in a carrier and takes it to a shelter. This action reveals a pattern: Mercy carefully guards her boundaries and refuses obligations that might compromise her vision of a solitary, uncluttered life, even when the cost falls on an innocent creature.necromancyneverpays.wordpress​

The Case for Courage and Necessity

Yet Tyler invites readers to complicate this judgment. Mercy is not a selfish woman in a vacuum; she is a woman of her generation who was socially required to abandon her artistic identity entirely to become a wife and mother. She sacrificed her Paris dreams, her artistic development, and her selfhood on the altar of conventional domesticity for thirty years. To judge her desire for autonomy by contemporary standards of gender equality misses the historical weight of her choice.necromancyneverpays.wordpress​

More subtly, Tyler suggests that Mercys "selfishness" might actually be a form of self-preservation and even self-care. One reader interprets Mercys careful separation not as cruelty but as "a kindness to Robin, in a way, to ease away into that other space" rather than leaving him abruptly or remaining in the marriage while quietly resenting him. From this perspective, Mercys refusal to explicitly abandon her family—her insistence on continuing to appear in their lives and manage their practical needs—represents a genuine attempt to honor her marriage while honoring her own autonomy.rohanmaitzen​

Mercy tells her granddaughter Kendall that "sometimes people live first one life and then another life. First a family life and then later a whole other kind of life. Thats what Im doing." This articulation suggests Mercy is not fleeing her family; she is seeking the possibility of living a second chapter, something that women of her era were rarely permitted to do.rohanmaitzen+1​

The Irreducibility of the Question

Tyler seems deliberately to resist providing a definitive answer to whether Mercy is selfish or courageous. The novel contains both indictments of her self-centeredness and evidence of her genuine desire to minimize harm to those she loves. Readers judgments of Mercy often depend on whether they can imaginatively enter the particular constraints of her historical moment—the 1950s housewife with unfulfilled artistic ambitions. As one thoughtful reader notes, their "lack of sympathy for how absolutely selfish Mercy feels she has to be may stem at least partly from never having to live through those years" themselves.necromancyneverpays.wordpress​

What emerges most powerfully from the novel is not a moral judgment but rather a recognition that Mercys separation is neither purely selfish nor purely courageous but rather an attempt to claim agency within impossible circumstances. She does not abandon her family; she does not rage against her husband; she does not claim victimhood. Instead, she quietly, persistently, relentlessly creates space for herself—a room of her own—while maintaining the fiction of her marriage and showing up for family obligations. Whether that is selfishness or courage depends, perhaps, on whether one believes a woman of Mercys generation had the right to demand a second life at all.

 

4. How do the three Garrett children—Alice, Lily, and David—represent different responses to the same upbringing? The three Garrett children—Alice, Lily, and David—are profoundly shaped by their shared upbringing yet respond to it in strikingly different ways, each developing a distinct strategy for managing the familys emotional detachment and patterns of avoidance. Their divergent paths reveal how individual temperament interacts with inherited family patterns to produce remarkably different life trajectories from the same household.

Alice: The Responsible Caretaker

Alice emerges as the eldest child who responds to her familys dysfunction by embracing responsibility and structure. From the very beginning, she is described as "steady," a characteristic that defines her response to family life. During the 1959 lakeside vacation that sets the novels emotional tone, Alice essentially becomes the functional parent, taking on the role of feeding the family and managing practical concerns while her mother Mercy neglects household duties and her father Robin struggles to connect with his children.litandlife.blogspot+1​

This early pattern persists throughout Alices life. She does not rebel against the familys emotional distance; instead, she accepts it as inevitable and develops systems to maintain family cohesion despite the emotional gaps. She marries Kevin, a man who consistently brings champagne to family events and who fits neatly into conventional social patterns. Her granddaughter Candle is described as impish and creative, suggesting that Alices own artistic impulses—potentially inherited from Mercy—have been channeled into maintaining household order rather than creative expression. Alice becomes the person who asks the difficult questions about family connection ("what does this family actually have to do with each other anymore?"), not out of anger but out of genuine bewilderment at the familys fractured nature.necromancyneverpays.wordpress​

Alices response strategy is fundamentally conservative: she accepts the family as it is, maintains appearances, ensures logistics are managed, and muddles through with a kind of weary acceptance that this is how her family operates. She does not attempt escape; she does not seek independence; she works within the system her parents modeled.

Lily: The Perpetual Seeker of Connection

If Alice represents the acceptance of family dysfunction, Lily embodies the frustrated attempt to escape it through romantic connection and repeated reinvention. During the 1959 vacation, fifteen-year-old Lily is described as "boy-crazy," and this characterization follows her throughout her life in the form of relentless relationship-seeking. Where Alice seeks to stabilize the family system, Lily seeks to transcend it.penguinrandomhouse+1​

Notably, Lily marries three times. Each marriage represents a fresh attempt to find fulfillment outside the family structure—to create a new family, a new beginning, a new possibility for emotional intimacy that her original family failed to provide. The novel notes that one of Lilys marriages occurs so quietly that even her own daughter Serena doesnt know about it until after the fact, suggesting that Lilys pursuit of connection is shadowed by the same patterns of avoidance and secrecy that characterized her parents relationship.necromancyneverpays.wordpress​

Yet Lilys impish temperament and boy-craziness also suggest something fundamentally different from her older sister: a resistance to resignation, an insistence on trying again, a refusal to accept that emotional connection is impossible. She is not necessarily happier than Alice, but her response represents an active, if ultimately frustrated, attempt to find fulfillment through external relationships rather than internal acceptance. The granddaughter Serena, who inherited Lilys capacity for connection-seeking but in a more tempered form, becomes somewhat withdrawn and uncertain herself—suggesting that Lilys pattern of seeking connection through others may not solve the underlying problem of family disconnection.

David: The Traumatized Escapist

Of the three siblings, David most dramatically embodies a response of complete withdrawal and emotional severing from the family. The novel traces this response back to a single moment during the 1959 lake vacation when his father Robin attempts to teach seven-year-old David to swim. Something in this ordinary moment—perhaps pressure, parental frustration, or Davids own anxiety—creates a lasting wound that shapes Davids relationship to his father and, by extension, to the entire family system.

From that point forward, David becomes "intent on escaping his familys orbit," for reasons nobody fully understands. As a teenager, he leaves for college and maintains emotional distance from his parents thereafter. Unlike Alice, who stayed geographically and emotionally close, and unlike Lily, who repeatedly attempted to forge new connections, David chose fundamental disconnection. He marries a colleague and announces this fact to his family only after the fact, mirroring the familys pattern of avoidance but taking it to an extreme.nytimes+2​

Yet the novel suggests that Davids escape is ultimately as impossible as Mercys attempt at independence. The very act of raising his own children forces David to confront the family patterns he inherited: he sees in his own son or grandson behaviors and characteristics mirroring those of relatives the child has never even met. This realization—that the ripples of family influence persist even when one believes oneself to be free—becomes the novels central metaphor, expressed through Davids understanding that a French braid leaves crimped ripples in the hair long after it is undone.maryloudriedger2.wordpress+1​

The Influence of Gender and Generational Expectation

Importantly, the siblings different responses are shaped not only by personality but also by the particular expectations placed on each by their parents and their era. Robins attempts to teach David to swim reflect particular expectations about masculinity and a sons relationship to his father—expectations that David fundamentally resists. Alice and Lily, as daughters, experience different parental expectations around caretaking and family loyalty.travelcocktail​

Lilys repeated remarriages and boy-craziness may also represent, in part, an internalization of her mother Mercys own restlessness and desire for escape, but channeled into socially acceptable forms (seeking romantic fulfillment rather than artistic independence). Alices steady responsibility may represent an inherited guilt about family abandonment—a determination not to become like the absent, self-focused mother.

The Paradox of Individual Difference Within Shared Experience

What emerges most powerfully from Tylers portrayal is that siblings raised by the same parents in the same household can develop almost entirely opposite strategies for managing family dysfunction. Alice stays and accepts. Lily repeatedly leaves and returns. David leaves and refuses to return. Yet all three ultimately discover that they cannot fully escape the familys gravitational pull. Each has adopted a different strategy, but none of them has truly transcended the patterns of emotional avoidance and disconnection that their parents modeled.

The novel suggests that this variety is not a failure of upbringing but rather an inevitable consequence of human personality interacting with family experience. The same family simultaneously produces a cautious, responsible stabilizer; a perpetually hopeful, repeatedly disappointed romantic seeker; and a resistant, emotionally wary escapist. Each response makes sense given the individuals temperament and circumstances, yet each response also carries within it a reflection of the familys core problems: difficulty with emotional directness, a tendency toward avoidance and silence, and an underlying loneliness that manifests differently in each sibling but remains fundamentally unresolved.sandradanby​

 

5. In what ways does Robin embody an older kind of masculinity, and how does that shape his marriage? Robin in "French Braid" embodies an older kind of masculinity characterized by traditional, patriarchal expectations of authority, responsibility, and stoicism. He represents the mid-20th century ideal of a male provider and disciplinarian who expects his family, especially his sons, to conform to his vision of strength and self-reliance.

Robins masculinity shapes his marriage and family life in significant ways. He is emotionally reserved, often using silence and avoidance rather than open communication, reflecting a generational norm of men suppressing vulnerability. His relationship with Mercy is marked by distance and a lack of emotional intimacy; they coexist more as partners in fulfilling roles than as emotionally connected spouses. Rather than expressing affection or engaging deeply with family members, Robin maintains control through routine and expectation, holding onto a stoic facade.

This traditional masculinity also influences his relationship with his children, especially David, whom Robin tries to teach conventional masculine skills like swimming—an attempt to instill strength and resilience but one that inadvertently creates emotional distance and tension. Robins frustration with his childrens deviations from his ideals, alongside his inability or unwillingness to articulate emotional needs, leads to a sense of alienation within the family. His role in the household is that of a steadfast, if somewhat remote, patriarch whose values both sustain and strain the family fabric.

Overall, Robins embodiment of an older masculinity shapes his marriage into one based on social expectations and duties rather than emotional connection, contributing to the underlying tensions and patterns of avoidance within the Garrett family.indiependent+1​

 

6. The novel covers sixty years. How does time itself act as a character or force within the story? Time acts as a powerful character and force in Anne Tylers French Braid, shaping the familys dynamics and the novels structure in multiple ways. Spanning over sixty years, from the 1940s to 2020, time is marked by long leaps between chapters, each set several years apart and narrated from different perspectives across generations. This expansive timeframe reveals how the Garrett familys relationships and patterns evolve slowly and imperceptibly, emphasizing change through accumulation rather than dramatic events.​

 

Time in the novel reveals the persistence and inescapability of family influence. Small moments—like the 1959 lakeside vacation—cast long shadows, shaping the characters lives for decades, showing how early experiences ripple through generations. The metaphor of the French braid encapsulates this: individual life strands intertwine and leave traces that endure, even as the braid is undone. Family connections are not erased by distance or time; they imprint enduring patterns of behavior, emotional avoidance, and unspoken legacies.​

 

Moreover, time exposes the tension between escape and resignation, especially seen in characters like Mercy, who slowly carve out space for themselves amid decades of commitment and sacrifice. The novel’s structure—jumping through decades and perspectives—mirrors the way memories and family histories unfold, often fragmented and incomplete, highlighting how time is intertwined with identity and perception.​

 

Thus, time in French Braid acts almost like a silent observer and agent, witnessing the slow unraveling and recombining of family bonds, underscoring that change is cumulative, elusive, and deeply embedded in generational history.​

7. Tyler often writes about ordinary people. What makes the everyday details in this novel feel meaningful? Anne Tyler makes everyday details in French Braid feel meaningful through her astute observation of ordinary people and their intricate, often inconsistent behaviors. Her light and compassionate narrative touch imbues routine moments—small talk about traffic, quiet domestic scenes, repeated family gatherings—with humor, warmth, and emotional complexity. These details become microcosms of family life, revealing characters’ flaws and eccentricities in ways that make them deeply human and recognizable.readherlikeanopenbook​

Tyler’s use of repetition—mundane conversations and habitual actions—at first seems to underscore the monotony of everyday life but eventually reveals the "necessary and endearing" nature of these routines that sustain family bonds. Instead of dramatic events, it is the accumulation of small, seemingly insignificant moments that trace patterns of love, avoidance, sacrifice, and connection over decades. This realism invites readers to find richness and poignancy in the unremarkable, reflecting how real family life is made up of ordinary moments rather than grand gestures.orangeblossomordinary​

The novel’s compassionate portrayal accepts that ordinary people are flawed and inconsistent, yet their small interactions have emotional weight precisely because they occur within the intimate, ongoing dynamics of family. This portrayal honors the paradox of family bonds: they are simultaneously frustrating and endearing, superficial and profound, marked by silence yet full of unspoken meaning.readherlikeanopenbook​

In sum, Tyler’s mastery lies in revealing that within the everyday—the small words, gestures, pauses, and routines—lies an entire universe of emotional significance, making ordinary life in French Braid feel deeply meaningful and true to how people actually live and love across time.

 

8. What role does silence play in the Garrett family? Are there things left unsaid that hold them together or keep them apart? Silence plays a complex and pivotal role in the Garrett family, acting both as a bond that holds them together and a barrier that keeps them apart. In Anne Tylers French Braid, much of the family’s interaction is characterized by what is left unsaid—unspoken tensions, avoided confrontations, and emotional distance.

The silence around Mercy’s slow separation from the household is a prime example. When she moves out to her studio, the family collectively determines not to acknowledge it openly, creating a tacit agreement to maintain appearances and avoid discomfort. This silence reflects a deep desire for space and peace, but also an emotional avoidance that limits genuine communication within the family.sga.profnit​

Throughout the novel, silence is linked to avoidance of painful truths, suppressed emotions, and unspoken resentments. The Garretts are skilled at maintaining a surface calm by not speaking about problems, disappointments, or failures. However, this very silence contributes to their emotional distance and fragmentation. Family members often feel isolated despite physical proximity because important feelings and conflicts remain hidden or ignored.readherlikeanopenbook+1​

At the same time, silence paradoxically acts as a connective tissue. It allows each member some measure of autonomy and respite from direct conflict, enabling the family to continue functioning without constant upheaval. The familys ability to tolerate mutual eccentricities and flaws is embedded in this unspoken accommodation; silence sometimes provides protection from emotional overload or rupture.sga.profnit+1​

In essence, silence in French Braid encapsulates the dual nature of family ties—it simultaneously masks fractures and maintains fragile bonds. The things left unsaid carry the weight of love, fear, regret, and hope, shaping the familys interactions and their shared history in subtle but powerful ways. This nuanced portrayal highlights that families often communicate as much in silence as in words, and that those silences hold profound meaning for sustaining and dividing family connections.goodreads+2​

 

9. How do later generations reflect—or resist—the patterns set by their parents and grandparents? Later generations in Anne Tylers French Braid both reflect and resist the emotional patterns set by their parents and grandparents, demonstrating the complexity of family influence over time.

The Garrett children—Alice, Lily, and David—inherited core family traits of emotional distance, silence, and avoidance but respond differently. Alice tends to accept and maintain these patterns by becoming the responsible caretaker who holds the family together. Lily resists more overtly by seeking connection and reinvention through multiple relationships, yet she also hides parts of her life like her mother Mercy did. David most strongly resists by withdrawing physically and emotionally from the family but still feels the pull of its legacy.readherlikeanopenbook+1​

The grandchildren similarly mirror traits such as secrecy and emotional avoidance. For example, David’s secret marriage and Lily’s hidden third marriage continue the familys tendency toward silence and secrecy. One grandson never reveals to the family that he is gay, illustrating ongoing discomfort with openness regarding difficult personal truths.nytimes​

Tyler portrays these responses not simply as conscious choices but as ingrained emotional legacies that shape behaviors across generations. Despite efforts to break free, later generations find themselves intertwined with family patterns—just as a French braid’s strands remain connected even after it is undone. The novel suggests that family influence endures subtly and powerfully, bridging acceptance, rebellion, and adaptation in complex, interwoven ways.necromancyneverpays.wordpress+1​

In summary, the later Garrett generations both embody and challenge inherited family dynamics, illustrating how past patterns persist yet evolve within individual lives and across time.

 

10. After finishing the novel, what do you think Anne Tyler wants readers to understand about love, habit, and the quiet endurance of family? Anne Tyler wants readers to understand that love in family life is rarely grand or theatrical but instead exists in the quiet endurance and habitual interactions that shape daily life across decades. In French Braid, love is intertwined with habit—patterns of silence, avoidance, care, and occasional cruelty—that together create the fabric of family connection. The novel reveals the paradox that families often grow apart even while remaining bound by invisible ties, much like a French braid whose ripples remain crimped long after it is undone.supersummary+1​

Tyler shows that love in families is complex, often messy and frustrating, grounded in small acts of endurance and persistence rather than expressions of passion or warmth. Characters tolerate and indulge each others flaws because their lives are intimately connected; this acceptance—combined with repeated small kindnesses and "little cruelties"—constructs the reality of family life. The novel emphasizes that families are their own worlds, shaped by histories, identities, and habits unique to them, and that these connections hold power even amid emotional distance.readherlikeanopenbook+1​

Habit emerges as both constraint and comfort. The characters repeated patterns—silence, avoidance, surface calm—offer stability but also limit openness and growth. Yet these habits are hard to break, showing how family influence endures, shaping who people become even as they consciously or unconsciously resist it. Time, love, and habit intertwine, producing a dynamic of ongoing negotiation between freedom and connection.samstillreading.wordpress+1​

In sum, Tyler invites readers to see family love not as idealized or flawless but as a complex braid of endurance, contradiction, and the mundane moments that sustain bonds over a lifetime. Love lives in daily habits, shared histories, silences, and small acts of care, all woven together in a human tapestry both fragile and resilient.necromancyneverpays.wordpress+2

 

 

quotes:

 

1.The trouble with wide-open families was, there was something very narrow about their attitude to not-open families.( Picky about imperfection.)

2.the sunlit platform glided into view(enlightenment helps us see the truth)

3. Mercy wondered if certain birds were famous among other birds

for their distinctive flying style—if they took pride in executing

a particularly graceful arc or a breathtaking swoop as the others

watched admiringly.

4.Different folks are cut out for different jobs.

5. Couples who divorced were shirkers. They were simply not grown up.

6. physical cruelty could be justify divorce

7. birds were still singing and the sun was still brightly shining.

 

 

roles:

1.      Uncle David was adopted and he was mad that no one had told him.

2.      Robin took over his grandfather’s shop,

3.      Mercy told the children she’d liked his father’s gentlemanly behavior.

4.      All three of the children, even David, knew that their mother Mercy

hated to cook. She claimed she loved to cook, but what she meant

was to make desserts. When Kids left home, Mercy plan to rent a house as her workroom. Neither girl asked outright what was going on. Neither one said, “Have you left? Are you and Dad splitting up?

5.      Robin, nothing much to look at, short and socially awkward, forever doing the wrong thing. And yet Mercy loved him. He had never asked her why; he was afraid that if she reflected too deeply, she would realize her mistake. He just kept the thought close to his chest, and polished it and cherished it as he had since

the day she had said yes to him: Mercy loves me, Robin knew that Mercy loved him was a short time of accident.

Once Robin threw David into the water and David thought he got drown.

Robin assumed that David wasn’t in any danger,  and Bentley were standing right there on the end of the dock. All Robin had to do was jump into the water and lift him up by one arm and he was fine! Robin didn’t think what he has done to David really gave him a very bad memory and refused to try swimming again.

6.      Lily met a friend during the vacation and had one night stand with him at 15. Lily

so sad and slouched that Robin felt not a big deal. Later Lily was

already married with Morris and making no mention whatsoever of her

pregnancy. Mercy was never going to change her view of Lily. She was

the problem child, a college dropout and a faithless wife

and the home-wrecker and the unwed mother. She just can’t

admit that a person is capable of change. Lily was thirty-eight

years old now! She managed a whole store! She had a very happy marriage

and a son who’s on the honor roll

7.      There was no way Robin would willingly lose touch with his own daughter. Why, family was more important to him than anything! He had spent too much of his youth without one

8.      Mercy is the one to be the bridge between children and her hub.

9.      Robin So bashful, he’d been; so tongue-tied and respectful. It

was a fad back then for boys to address girls as “kiddo” and treat

them with the cool amusement that Humphrey Bogart displayed

toward his leading ladies. “Whenever we complained about a

meal she’d tell us, ‘Well, your father Robin has never complained.’

10.  Serena Drew is the granddaughter who opens the novel and serves as the entry point into the Garrett family story. She is the younger daughter of Lily Garrett, who is the middle child of Mercy and Robin Garrett.​

11.  Alice and Lily didn’t talk very often—only when there was

an issue involving their parents or some such.

12.  Serena

 A graduate student living in Baltimore who feels somewhat

disconnected from her own family. At the beginning of the novel, she is at Philadelphias train station with her boyfriend, James, and believes she recognizes her cousin Nicholas, though she is uncertain enough that she hesitates to approach him. This moment of not recognizing her own cousin becomes significant—it prompts James to comment on how distant Serenas family seems, which in turn causes Serena to reflect on her familys history.​

Her Role in the Story:

Although Serena appears only in the first chapter, she is essential to the novels structure. Her confusion and discomfort about not knowing her cousin well triggers the narrative that follows, which explores the Garrett familys fragmented relationships across generations. She serves as a catalyst for the reader to investigate the deeper family dynamics that have created such emotional distance among family members.​

Serena embodies a key theme of Anne Tylers novel—the way families can be geographically and emotionally close yet feel like strangers to one another. Her characterization highlights the broader question that haunts the novel: what makes a family not work?​

14. Alice herself was not in town; she and Kevin had moved to Baltimore County without notifying her family.

15. David married Greta, who was a nurse. Her ex-husband was a doctor, and they had one daughter named Emily. No one in David’s family learned the news until long after he was already married.

Pages 142(chapter5)

16.Robin’s father was a long-haul trucker who met some woman up in New Jersey and filed for divorce when Robin was six years old. He had lived with Aunt Alice since the age of fourteen, after his mother died of cancer. Although really, Aunt Alice said, she had died of a broken heart. Aunt Alice—a lifelong cannery employee—who was concerned with questions of class.

17. Robin’s mom went to work after that for a dry cleaner, doing alterations,

but when Robin thought of her now he pictured her endlessly at

home, endlessly slumped in a comma shape on the living-room

sofa. Possibly, he allowed, there were some factors—physical

cruelty, for instance—that could justify divorce

18.Robin threw a surprise 50-year Golden Anniversary feast and featured an old video with the kids and grandkids for Mercy to win her heart back again.

chapter 6 (174)

19.candel changed herself when she was so young

20.Candel enjoy staying in her grandmom’s studio for painting.

21. Robin & Mercy Garrett (parents)

• David Garrett+Greta → son Nicholas(Eddie)
• Lily Garrett +Trent→ daughter Kendel
• Alice Garrett +Kavin→ daughter Serena+Jeff

22. Kendel left the train earlier while grandmom fell asleep and hard to wake up

23.

- The novel begins in 2010 with Serena Drew and her boyfriend James at the Philadelphia train station.

- Serena spots her cousin Nicholas there. He is David Garrett’s son.

- Earlier in the family’s history, Kendel (Lily’s daughter) had left the train before, while Mercy (the grandmother) had fallen asleep and was difficult to wake up.

- That detail about Kendel and Mercy comes from the Garretts’ family trip years before, which is remembered later in the book. It shows how disconnected and loosely tied the family often was — everyone drifting in their own direction, sometimes literally leaving without notice.

24. 206 pages(chapter 7)

David, the youngest of Robin and Mercy Garrett’s children, grows up to be a practical, tool‑oriented man, much like his father Robin. Eddie inherits that same streak — he’s the one grandchild who shows a fascination with tools and handiwork, echoing his grandfather’s personality.

So to place him in the family tree:

• Robin(Robby the boy) & Mercy Garrett (grandparents)

• David Garrett → three sons: Eddie (likes tools, resembles grandfather)，Benny ，Nicolas
• Lily Garrett → daughter Kendel(Robby the girl)
• Alice Garrett → daughter Serena

25. Robin Garrett (the father, husband of Mercy) is sometimes nicknamed Robby. He’s the original “Robby,” the man who loves tools and practical work.

• Later, in the grandchildren’s generation, there is also a Robby (the girl) — this is Alice’s daughter Serena’s cousin Kendel’s friend nickname confusion in some readers’ notes, but in the novel itself the “Robby the girl” reference is shorthand for Robin’s granddaughter who shares his name.

So:

• Robby the boy = Robin Garrett (the grandfather, Mercy’s husband).
• Robby the girl = the granddaughter who is named after him (a girl in the younger generation).

26. David:

David recalls a childhood memory of being pressured by his father, Robin, to enter a lake while their neighbor Bentley was watching. Though reluctant, David obeyed, wading deeper into the water until he suddenly lost footing and began to choke. Unable to cry out, he hoped his father would notice, but it was Bentley who pointed out his distress. Robin looked down at David with a strange, unreadable expression, leaving David unsettled.

Years later, during a family gathering, David’s son Nicholas mistakes an old photo for “Uncle Kevin.” David, unwilling to engage, simply replies that he cannot say and abruptly leaves the room.

27. Core Family

• Robin & Mercy Garrett → the parents at the top of the family tree.

• Children: Alice, Lily, and David.

David’s Branch

• David Garrett (the youngest child of Robin & Mercy).

• Son: Nicholas → appears in the opening scene at the Philadelphia train station, where Serena (Alice’s daughter) meets him.
• Son: Eddie → the practical child who resembles his grandfather Robin in his love of tools.
• Son: Benny → another of David’s children, mentioned later in the novel.

Relationships

• David is the father.
• Eddie, Benny, and Nicholas are David’s three sons.
• They are brothers to one another.
• They are grandchildren of Robin & Mercy.

28. Robin & Mercy Garrett (parents)

• Children: Alice, Lily, and David
• Grandchildren: Serena (Alice’s daughter), Kendel (Lily’s daughter), and Nicholas, Eddie, Benny (David’s sons)

29. This passage from French Braid is layered with meaning about family bonds, perception, and David’s lifelong insecurity.

Surface Scene

• David, Greta, Benny (David’s grandson), and the family dog John are walking together.
• Benny is frightened by a bumblebee, and David tries to reassure him with playful explanations about insects. Greta joins in, and Benny eventually laughs, calling his grandfather “crazy.”
• The moment shows David successfully connecting with his grandson, despite his earlier anxiety about whether family members would get along.

Deeper Meaning

• Greta points out that David had worried about bonding with Benny, but the interaction turned out well.
• David reflects that family affection cannot be taken for granted. He distinguishes between “love” (automatic, expected in families) and “like” (genuine enjoyment of one another’s company).
• This triggers a painful memory: as a child, David felt his father Robin didn’t like him. He recalls being pressured into the lake and sensing his father’s odd, detached expression.
• David insists that children can detect subtle cues in their parents’ behavior — they know whether they are truly liked.

Greta’s Response

• Greta tries to comfort David, insisting his father valued him and that David was a good son.
• David, however, remains unconvinced, ending with a resigned “If you say so.”

Overall Meaning

This paragraph illustrates:

• Generational echoes: David worries about being liked by his grandson, just as he once worried about being liked by his father.
• Family distance: Love may be assumed, but genuine warmth and liking are fragile.
• David’s insecurity: His childhood sense of rejection still shapes his adult relationships.
• Greta’s role: She reassures and reframes, but David’s doubt lingers.

30.In short, the scene shows how childhood perceptions of parental affection—or lack of it—echo across generations, influencing how David relates to his own children and grandchildren.

30. You’re absolutely right to pause here — the family relationships in French Braid can feel tangled because Anne Tyler moves back and forth across generations. Let’s straighten it out:

• David Garrett is the youngest child of Robin and Mercy Garrett.
• David grows up, marries Greta, and they have three sons: Nicholas, Eddie, and Benny.
• That means David is Benny’s father (not grandfather).

In the passage you quoted earlier, Benny calls David “Grappa.” That’s just a nickname — a playful way of saying “Grandpa” — but in fact Benny is David’s son, not his grandson. Tyler uses this kind of affectionate, sometimes confusing family language to show how names and roles blur inside families.

So to be clear:

• Robin Garrett = grandfather of Benny.
• David Garrett = father of Benny.
• Benny, Eddie, Nicholas = David’s children.

Would you like me to draw up a simple family tree diagram of the Garretts so you can see all the parents, children, and cousins clearly at a glance?

31. What’s happening

• David and Greta find a photo of David with his son Benny in the garden, captioned by Nicholas (“Benny with his beloved Grappa”). The picture stirs tender feelings in David, even though he jokes about looking old.
• As they sort through belongings left behind, Greta is caught smelling a child’s mask, moved by the lingering presence of Benny. David comforts her, but later he secretly does the same — pressing the mask to his face to breathe in Benny’s scent and recall his little boy’s voice.

Meaning

• Physical traces of childhood (a sock, a toy, a mask) become emotional triggers. They remind David and Greta of Benny’s presence, even in his absence.
• David’s reaction shows how deeply he cherishes his son, despite his tendency to downplay or joke about his feelings.
• The sensory details — smell of sweat, sight of ears, sound of voice — emphasize how memory is embodied and vivid.
• The moment reflects the novel’s larger theme: family bonds endure through small, ordinary objects and fleeting memories, even as people grow up and move away.

Emotional core

This is a tender portrait of parents holding onto the ephemeral traces of childhood, savoring them before they vanish. It shows how love is expressed not only in grand gestures but in quiet, private acts of remembrance.

32 Key Moments Between David and Benny

• Bonding through small things: David often worries whether his children truly like him, not just love him. With Benny, he finds joy in little moments—like admiring cherry tomatoes together in the garden or joking about insects to ease Benny’s fears.
• “Grappa” nickname: Benny affectionately calls David “Grappa,” which shows warmth and closeness, even though David sometimes doubts his own worth as a father.
• The bumblebee scene: Benny freezes when a bee hovers near him. David reassures him with playful explanations, turning fear into laughter. This moment reassures David that he can connect with his son.
• The mask memory: After Benny leaves, David and Greta find his belongings around the house. David secretly presses Benny’s child‑sized mask to his face, breathing in the scent to hold onto his son’s presence. It shows how deeply he cherishes Benny, even when apart.
• Underlying tension: Despite these tender moments, David carries the shadow of his own childhood—he felt his father Robin didn’t like him. That insecurity makes him anxious about whether Benny and his brothers (Nicholas, Eddie) will genuinely enjoy his company.

Meaning

What “happened” between David and Benny is not a dramatic rupture but a series of quiet, intimate exchanges that reveal David’s longing to be liked and remembered by his children. Benny, with his innocence and affection, gives David reassurance that he is indeed loved and enjoyed, even if David struggles to believe it fully.

 

Conclusion:

1.To have beard or not that Renea and James have different concept(chapter 1)

2. The opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference.

3. A French braid is a hairstyle where you start with a section of hair at the crown, divide it into three strands, and repeatedly cross the side strands over the middle strand. The key to a French braid is to add a small new section of hair to each outer strand before you cross it over the center, and to continue this process down the head until all hair is incorporated. Once all hair is braided in, you finish the remainder with a standard three-strand braid and secure the end with an elastic. 

4. French braid divide it into three strands which symbolize three kids end up into different. But they still bind together.

5. The greatest accomplishment of Robin’s life was: not a single

one of his children guessed that Mercy wasn’t living at home

anymore. How miserable all the family members have no clue of their family problems?

6.the quality you marry a person for will end up being what you hate them for, most often.

7. No matter how things go from bad to worse, a kind action will turn from bad to good.

8. When I got married, more than three decades ago, I did not want to promise to love my husband until death do us part. I did want to try; Dan was my soul mate and sweetheart, and I felt lucky and excited to start a life and family with him. But death — we hoped!— was light years away (we were 29), and a part of me rebelled against vowing my entire life to a monogamous, cohabitating partnership. I’d lived alone in my 20s and loved it; I’d always needed private space to fully unfold. I’d also enjoyed dating and sleeping odd hours; I’m an obsessive thinker and writer. Love or not, I worried marriage might suffocate me.

So I told Dan I couldn’t swear to what I couldn’t predict. He countered: People won’t come to our wedding to hear, “I’ll give it my best shot, but….” He had a point. I said the vows.

We were both right — he in his confidence, me to think twice. Now 33 years later, I’m proud of our long, loving marriage: nurturing children, homes, friendships, pets; collaboratively writing and editing books and articles. We laughed and learned and lived, first struggling financially (but together! as artists!), later finding our footing. We were a connected, compatible team for a charmed, exciting, mostly happy chunk of our lives.

But every marriage has its issues, and the empty nest catapults them to the surface. We had different ways of feeling and expressing intimacy. Dan was working harder than ever, but now with a new team that didn’t include me — and the more he (understandably) devoted himself to that world, the more I both escaped into my own projects and expanded into the sweet peace

1.      everyone drifting in their own direction, sometimes literally leaving without notice.

2.      Anne Tyler uses this doubling of names (Robby the boy and Robby the girl) to highlight how family identities echo across time, sometimes blurring distinctions between generations.

3.      Kevin is not a central character in Anne Tyler’s French Braid.

In fact, there is no major Garrett family member named Kevin. The confusion comes from a scene late in the novel when Nicholas (David’s son) is looking at old family photos. He sees a picture of a young man and asks, “Could this next one be a picture of Uncle Kevin? He looks so young!” David, however, doesn’t answer and simply leaves the room.

What this means in the story

Kevin is mentioned only in passing as an “uncle,” but he is not part of the Garrett family’s main line (Robin, Mercy, Alice, Lily, David, and their children Serena, Kendel, and Nicholas).

The reference highlights how family connections are vague and easily forgotten. Nicholas doesn’t even know for sure who Kevin is, and David avoids clarifying.

Anne Tyler uses this moment to underscore the novel’s theme: the Garretts are a family that drifts apart, with relatives becoming little more than names or half‑remembered figures.

So:

Kevin exists in the story only as a name in Nicholas’s guess.

He is not developed as a character, nor does he play a role in the Garretts’ narrative.

11.David reflects that family affection cannot be taken for granted. He distinguishes between “love” (automatic, expected in families) and “like” (genuine enjoyment of one another’s company).

Generational echoes: David worries about being liked by his grandson, just as he once worried about being liked by his father.

Family distance: Love may be assumed, but genuine warmth and liking are fragile.

David’s insecurity: His childhood sense of rejection still shapes his adult relationships.

Greta’s role: She reassures and reframes, but David’s doubt lingers.

12.families do for each other—hide a few uncomfortable truths, allow a few

self-deceptions. Little kindnesses and little cruelties,”

13. family bonds endure through small, ordinary objects and fleeting memories, even as people grow up and move away.

 

December Book Club Meeting Review by Consultant Clive         December 1st

 

A book club has a remarkable power. It takes a quiet novel like French Braid and gives it a fuller life than it ever could have on the solitary page. At first, the story seems gentle and almost muted, filled with ordinary people going through the motions of ordinary years. The meaning appears simple and the movement of the plot almost invisible. Yet the moment a group begins to speak about it, something extraordinary happens. Our members noticed how Mercy’s slow withdrawal reflects the silent dreams of many women from her generation. Florence saw Lily’s restlessness and change as someone who was easy to relate to. Lydia was confused by the ache in David’s distance, but the idea of family members who keep themselves apart it not a part of Taiwan’s familial culture.  Suddenly the small moments that seemed almost flat begin to pulse with emotion. The insights that MingLi, Florence and Lydia gave us today made this month’s book larger and more intricate because every reader contributes a new angle, a new memory, a new interpretation. Discussion becomes the real engine of the novel. It uncovers the hidden tensions, reveals the unspoken love, and gives shape to the delicate threads Tyler places so lightly on the page. The story becomes powerful not because of plot twists but because conversation unlocks its quiet truth. In a book club, the readers expand the novel with their own lives. They braid together their insights just as the Garrett family is braided together by time. This shared act of thinking and feeling transforms a modest book into something luminous, something memorable, something deeply human.  To everyone who participated today, a huge thank you…as the only male who regularly participates in book club, your perspectives help me understand life through a different lens.

 

Related reading:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/opinion/marriage-divorce-happy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5U8.f9Tk.c_E_b5Phe7Wu&smid=url-share&fbclid=IwY2xjawOaOUdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETExY3pmY1d6Z3U5ZFowYjlnc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHqAYAdM4oa-5N8oQx-BLTeKWAbFzHUPgVmeJ8qo8HKeFNOJevOXkr1dpDk9f_aem_y4fZrRuOkBricRp5zyHrVw