Family Instability in Breathwork Classes, Homesick Restaurant, and Accidental Tourist The perfect suburban family has become a major theme and stereotype in American culture. The families in Anne Tyler's works represent the exact opposite of this cultural stereotype. None of Tyler's novels contain families with faithful housewives, breadwinning husbands, and 2.3 perfect, well-behaved children. Tyler kills this misunderstood stereotype in Breathing Lessons, Dinner at Homesick, and The Accidental Tourist. Anne Tyler grew up with her parents in a series of experimental communes, so she developed a different perception of family life. See domestic life from the perspective of an outsider looking in. Minor – and sometimes major – flaws characterize the average family in Tyler's novels because many of today's families are imperfect. Because of his communal upbringing, he looks at family life more honestly than writers who romanticize family life. Tyler's novels show that the image most people see when they think of the typical American family is shifting from the Cleavers to the Simpsons. Anne Tyler was born in Minnesota in 1941, but spent much of her childhood moving around. Tyler never spent a minute of his childhood living in the kind of suburban family typical of the 1940s and 1950s. Because large Southern domestic families surrounded her as she grew up, she was somewhat of an outsider in society. Tyler's unorthodox upbringing led her to "...see the normal world with a certain distance and surprise, which can sometimes be useful to a writer" (Crane 2). Tyler realistically depicts family relationships without over-exaggerating them. ...... half of the sheet ......--- .The Accidental Tourist. New York: Knopf, 1985.-----.Dinner at Homesick Restaurant. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1982. Yardley, Jonathan. "Anne Tyler's Family Circles." Washington Post, August 25, 1985, (pp. 311-313).Mathewson, Joseph. “Doing the Anne Tyler tour.” Horizon, vol. 28, no. 7, September 1985, (p. 313). Demott, Benjamin. "Funny, wise and true." New York Times Book Review, March 14, 1982, (p. 432). Updike, John. "Blow, Vonnegut, Tyler, Le Guin, Cheever." Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism, New York: Knopf 1983, (pp. 434-435). "A Look: Dinner at Homesick Restaurant." Available [Online], April 23, 1999, http// www.Amazon.com." A Glance: Breathing Lessons. " Available [Online], April 23, 1999, http// www.Amazon.com."Crane, Gwen "Anne Tyler." Scribner Writers CD, (pp. 1-19).