Back When We Were Grownups is a 2001 novel written by Anne Tyler in memory of her husband, who died in 1997. Plot Tyler's 15th novel, like most of her work, is set in Baltimore, Maryland. It opens with the sentence, "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person." The woman in question is Rebecca Davitch, a 53-year-old widow, mother, grandmother, and proprietor of a party and catering business run from her home called Open Arms. Up until age 20 Rebecca's life had been following a fairly predictable straight-line path towards both marriage to her high school sweetheart and a Ph.D. in history. Then Joe Davitch came along and she was "swept off my feet by a fully grown man, someone who...was already living his life." Joe was a 33-year-old divorcee with 3 children whom Rebecca met at a friend's party that happened to be at the Open Arms. One month later, Rebecca had quit college, had married Joe, and—as she quickly discovered—had married the Davitch family, with Joe's 3 daughters, his mother, his brother Zeb, his huge old Baltimore house (Open Arms) and its business as a venue for celebrations of all sorts—weddings, graduations, christenings, anniversaries, etc. Before too long she also discovers that she has become the de facto manager of the Open Arms and the mother of Joe's 3 girls and their own new baby daughter. When Joe himself dies after only 6 years of marriage and Joe's uncle Poppy moves in, she finds herself with even more responsibility. Having cheerfully and exhaustingly raised four daughters, run the "celebrations business," and helped her daughters through 6 marriages (+ 2 divorces) and 7 grandchildren, Rebecca is now taking a breath to ask, "What happened to the 20-year young woman who was a serious scholar, politically-involved idealist, engaged to be engaged….?" At an engagement party for one of her stepdaughters, Rebecca finds herself questioning everything about her life, and decides to take steps to resurrect her former self. Her self-improvement project includes a visit to her hometown in Virginia, picking up old hobbies, reading books that she had read in college, and renewing her intellectual interests, without abandoning her many matriarchal and professional duties. She also eventually gets reacquainted with her old college/high school sweetheart. Will Allenby is a somewhat stodgy and constricted person (much as he was in college,