Commonwealth – Ann Patchett
I have seen this book everywhere and contemplated buying it on several occasions, but for some reason never did and then finally I borrowed it from the library. I liked it, but as I don’t think I will read it again I am glad I didn’t buy it.
Here’s the blurb …
It is 1964: Bert Cousins, the deputy District Attorney, shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited, bottle of gin in hand. As the cops of Los Angeles drink, talk and dance into the June afternoon, he notices a heart-stoppingly beautiful woman. When Bert kisses Beverly Keating, his host’s wife, the new baby pressed between them, he sets in motion the joining of two families whose shared fate will be defined on a day seven years later.
In 1988, Franny Keating, now twenty-four, has dropped out of law school and is working as a cocktail waitress in Chicago. When she meets one of her idols, the famous author Leon Posen, and tells him about her family, she unwittingly relinquishes control over their story. Franny never dreams that the consequences of this encounter will extend beyond her own life into those of her scattered siblings and parents.
Told with equal measures of humour and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a powerful and tender tale of family, betrayal and the far-reaching bonds of love and responsibility. A meditation on inspiration, interpretation and the ownership of stories, it is Ann Patchett’s most astonishing work to date.
This novel had an interesting premise about stories and memory and writing. What are the ethics involved in turning someone’s story into a novel? And what if someone else who experienced the event had a different version? And what happens when the story is in the world? Is that the definitive version? Does it really matter? Has there been a betrayal?
Despite all of this I wasn’t captured by this novel. It just wasn’t for me, which is not a criticism, I think it is well-written.
More reviews …
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/16/commonwealth-by-ann-patchett-review
Pingback: These Precious Days – Ann Patchett | My BookClub Reviews