NEW YORK – After more than 20 books, Anne Tyler still finds ways to challenge herself. Her new novel, “Redhead By the Side of the Road,” is, of course, set in her longtime home of Baltimore and features the family and romantic entanglements and other narrative touches Tyler fans know well.
But the story's main character, a self-employed tech consultant/repairman confronting the fallout of decisions made years before, pretty much came out of nowhere. “This is the first book I’ve written where I began with no idea,” Tyler, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist known for “The Accidental Tourist,” “Morgan's Passing” and “Breathing Lessons,” told The Associated Press in a recent email. "I was wracking my brains for something to write about, and a