Patchwork Planet

A Patchwork Planet is a novel by the American writer Anne Tyler, published in 1998.

The book is narrated by Barnaby, who is good at his work and hopeless at everything his family values: he has an ex-wife, a small daughter with opinions about him, and a habit of asking questions about other people's lives that has already led him into serious trouble. The clients he moves furniture for are old, particular and often alone, and Tyler gives them the room to be as eccentric as they are. Barnaby's belief that a Gaitlin angel watches over the family is a story he has kept since childhood, and the woman he decides must be the angel has no interest in the role he has written for her. The novel is about a man working out what kind of life he is willing to be judged for.

It was the author's fourteenth novel, and it was reissued some years later alongside several of her others, in editions that found her a new readership.