Three Days in June

by Anne Tyler ★★★★☆

Three Days in June opens with our main character and narrator, Gail, unceremoniously being told she won't be returning in her role as assistant headmistress at the private school at which she'd worked for the past eleven years. Her boss is retiring, but rather than promote Gail, they are bringing in someone new, who is also bringing along her own assistant. At sixty-one years of age, Gail is suddenly out of job...and it's the day before her only daughter's wedding.

Gail returns home to stew over the unfortunate turn her professional life just took, only to have her ex-husband Max interrupt her malaise minutes into it. Max shows up on her doorstep needing a place to stay for the wedding weekend. He has brought a foster cat with him to the wedding, and because his soon-to-be son-in-law is deathly allergic, he's unable to stay with them as planned (an admittedly strange choice on a couple's wedding weekend). Gail and Max are cordial; it's been years since their divorce, and any animosity has faded to a dull ache. Gail reluctantly offers Max her spare bedroom, and the weekend ensues.

Of course, there is a rehearsal, and a wedding ceremony, and all the other activities that accompany most unions; the rest of life goes on, and that's what this short story is about. At just over 150 pages, it's a quick read, but it also feels fully realized; I didn't need more. Gail carries the tale, but Max plays a lovable foil to Gail's "poor people skills" (the reason why she didn't get the headmistress position). "I envisioned him as he had looked in his dead-black suit, so hopeful and unaware, the kind of man who would never, ever in his life knowingly harm another person." All the family and interpersonal dynamics you might come to expect at a wedding are on display. It's filled with punchy dialogue, plenty of superior judging by Gail of most everyone there, and the rollercoaster of emotions that she goes through seeing her one daughter start a new life with a husband whom Gail doesn't fully trust. We learn the backstory of how Gail and Max's marriage dissolved. We also see Gail come to grips with this turning point in her life, and ride along with her as she starts to evaluate how her needs now may be different than they once were.

It's sweet, it's a little funny, and after 8+ decades on the planet, author Anne Tyler is locked into the essence of human interaction. The dialogue rings true, and the characters are imminently believable, even if a few seem a bit too much like tropes acting out their standard role in a wedding performance. It's a quick, enjoyable read.