In this razor-sharp novel, Anne Tyler explores unsettling questions of love, loss, identity and family, and moving with breathtaking assurance between heartbreak and hilarity, asks us all to consider: Can one ever recover the person one has left behind?
When Rebecca first met Joe Davitch at an engagement party at his family home, he was a man of the world, a divorceé with three young daughters. It wasn't long before Rebecca was swept into the Davitch orbit: marrying Joe, becoming the de facto proprietress of his family's business—the Open Arms—and hosting lavish celebrations at the crumbling nineteenth century Davitch home. Six years into their marriage, Rebecca is widowed by Joe's death in a car accident, but nevertheless carries on fulfilling her duties as hostess, mother, and caretaker.
     Now fifty-three, Rebecca wakes up one morning realizing she's an imposter in her own life. Was she always called to this vocation of outgoing and joyous celebrator? Would she have been a different person if she had married her high school sweetheart back when she was a serious scholar? Was she meant to be someone else?
     Candid and contemplative, Back When We Were Grownups is one woman's rumination into the roads we leave behind as we move forward with life.