Male, forty-three going on forty-four, OCD sufferer, who likes to put the bins out for the neighbours and who hates radio phone-in shows.  No, this is not my profile from the Plenty of Fish dating website, but it could be.

Instead, this describes Micah Mortimer, the central character in Anne Tyler’s latest great novel, Redhead by the Side of the Road.

The similarities between Micah and me are that similar that it caused me to laugh out loud as I read them.  Therefore, I instantly bonded with this very likeable character.  A perfectionist who is a nice guy with a good set of morals, yet another three things that accurately describe us both.

Set-in present-day Baltimore in the United States, we first find Micah plodding on through life.  His life is ordinary doing a computer maintenance job that he just about tolerates.  He has a girlfriend called Cass, but nothing seems exceptional about their relationship either.

Micah then gets a surprising visitor one day at his front door.  It is this visitor that then mainly shapes the rest of the narrative. Could Micah really be a father after all these years?

There are two ways you can look at this book though.  You could argue it is boring because not much happens (even with this surprise visitor).  Whereas I fall in the second category, that appreciates a beautifully written story about the mundanity of life. 

Narrative tension builds through Micah’s depression growing deeper.  Without giving away anything crucial, it ends on a rather poignant note. 

A modern-day story that superbly depicts the alienation of modern-day life. 4/5.