Tag Archives: ann patchett

September 25, 2023 · 5:59 pm

Tom Lake – Ann Patchett

I have read (and enjoyed) The Dutch House, Commonwealth and These Precious Days, so, clearly I was going to read this one.

Here’s the blurb

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family’s orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.

This is a quiet novel more about the characters than the action. It’s a bit coming of age, but also a nostalgic look back at Lara’s younger days. I felt Joe could have been fleshed out a bit more and I am not convinced about the end of the affair (shall we say). But the writing is, as always, beautiful. And I enjoyed all of the theatre, movie, costume and sewing references.

A review

These Precious Days – Ann Patchett

I bought this as a present for a friend (I don’t think she was that impressed), but I was keen to read it, so when I saw the book on Borrowbox I downloaded it.

Here’s the blurb …

The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays.

“Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.

At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a suprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores “what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self.” When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks’ short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman—Tom’s brilliant assistant Sooki—with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both.

A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer’s eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be.

From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz’s Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author’s grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark—and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.

I have listened to Ann Patchett on various book programmes and I have read The Dutch House and Commonwealth, so I was keen to read these personal essays. I enjoyed it, particularly the knitting one and the one about the friend with cancer coming to stay.

A review

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

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/commonwealth-review-ann-patchetts-novel-of-postdivorce-families-20161027-gsc0ec.html

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