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Ann Patchett’s Pandemic Novel

When the author Ann Patchett was five years old, her family broke apart. Her mother divorced her father, married the man with whom she’d been having an affair, and moved Patchett and her sister from Los Angeles to Nashville. Patchett gained four new siblings and an additional parent. Years later, when she was twenty-seven, her mother remarried again. “I suffered from abundance,” she writes in “My Three Fathers,” a 2020 essay for this magazine. As a girl, she would fly back to L.A. for a week every summer to see her birth father. Often, they’d go to Forest Lawn cemetery. “We would bring a lunch and walk the paths through the exemplary grass to see where the movie stars were buried,” Patchett writes. She adds that the scent of carnations can still return her to “those happy afternoons.” The cemetery, crowded but lonely, gives off echoes of her unconventional ménage, and Patchett fashions it into a figure for family itself: a plot in which you’re trapped with a bunch of strangers, a place of mingled loss and togetherness.

Most of Patchett’s work is directly or indirectly about the experience of being stuck in a difficult family. She is a connoisseur of ambivalent interpersonal dynamics within closed groups. “Bel Canto” (2001), her breakout novel, traces the bonds that develop among terrorists and their prisoners. “State of Wonder” (2011) follows a scientist searching for her colleagues in the Amazon rain forest. In the Pulitzer finalist “The Dutch House” (2019), two grown siblings return compulsively to their unhappy childhood: “Like swallows, like salmon, we were the helpless captives of our migratory patterns.”

Patchett is interested in how people, in families and elsewhere, come to terms with painful circumstances; how they press beauty from constraint, assuming artificial or arbitrary roles that then become naturalized, like features of the landscape. In “Commonwealth” (2016), her most autobiographical novel, six children flung together by their parents’ affair form a fraught alliance, in which the older kids routinely drug their baby brother with Benadryl. The father leaves his gun within easy reach of the kids, and the mother grabs glassy-eyed time-outs in the car. One son becomes obsessed with the art of setting fires, almost burning down his school.

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In her twenties, Franny, the protagonist, appears to transcend her upbringing by recounting it to a famous novelist, who turns it into a best-selling work of fiction. It’s a thrillingly illicit inversion, or seems to be: Franny was trapped in her family, but now she has trapped them in a book; she has transformed the sinkhole of her past into a resource. But as her relatives bear up under “the inestimable burden of their lives”—the kids marrying and procreating, the parents retiring and sickening—their family narratives evolve. A mute sibling is rebranded “the smart one.” When Franny reconnects with Albie, the brother so monstrous his siblings fed him Benadryl, she notes with surprise that “there wasn’t anything so awful about him. It was only that he was a little kid.” Franny’s family is a resource, she realizes, but she has mistaken its nature—it is not an heirloom to be handed off to a stranger but a commons, an inexhaustible font of ever-changing roles and stories. As the novel draws to a close, Patchett celebrates this reserve, accelerating through scenes of connection: a beach trip, a party, a talk on the porch. The gatherings suggest that talismanic word, abundance. They portray a kind of land wealth—a richness of common ground.

In “Tom Lake,” Patchett’s ninth and newest novel (Harper), members of a summer theatre troupe in rural Michigan in the nineteen-eighties coalesce into something like an incestuous family. They share housing, meals, and beds; their community is rife with intense, fleeting intimacies. As the group is putting on a production of “Our Town,” by Thornton Wilder, the actress cast as Emily, the play’s ingénue, drops out. A young performer named Lara arrives to pinch-hit. Lara didn’t formally study theatre, but she has an uncanny ability to inhabit the role. “He understood what he was looking at,” she says of one director. “A pretty girl who wasn’t so much playing a part as she was right for the part she was playing.”

At Tom Lake, the town where the troupe is based, Lara is greeted by the cast as star, savior, and potential love interest. She has eyes only for twenty-eight-year-old Peter Duke, who plays Emily’s father. Within days, she and Duke are spending all their time together, rehearsing, having sex, or swimming in the lake. The summer becomes a blur of overlapping absorptions—in Wilder’s language, in the water, in one another. “We wore our swimsuits under our clothes and ran to the lake in lieu of eating lunch,” Lara recalls. “We could get from the stage to being nearly naked and fully submerged in four minutes flat.”

Tom Lake is a fairy tale, a conjunction of person, time, and place, and it is as transient as any idyll, slipping through Lara’s fingers even as half a day seems to last “a solid six months.” “No one gets to go on playing Emily forever,” she thinks, preëmptively grieving. The curtain falls sooner than she expects. On the tennis court, Lara ruptures her Achilles tendon; her understudy, a magnetic Black dancer named Pallace, steps into the Emily part. Watching her friend take the stage, Lara later remembers, “I cried because she was that good. I cried because I would never play Emily again. I cried because I had loved that world so much.” When the summer ends, Duke goes on to a wildly successful career in Hollywood. Lara quits acting, marries a cherry farmer, and becomes a mother.

In the spring of 2020, at the start of the COVID -19 lockdown, Lara, now fifty-seven, is sheltering in place on the family farm with her husband, Joe Nelson, and their three twentysomething daughters, Emily, Maisie, and Nell. With harvesters scarce, the Nelsons have to pick and process their own fruit; to make the time go by faster, Lara tells the girls about her brief career as an actor.

The early pandemic, with its claustrophobic intimacy, seems almost tailor-made for Patchett’s interests. “Tom Lake” is about being caught in an intractable family situation. It is about being constrained by one’s role—in this case, motherhood—and it is about the transformations wrought by the passage of time and the search for confinement’s upsides. The seasonal beauty of the fruit trees evokes the ephemeral loveliness of youth, romance, and fame; the novel, which is haunted by classics of theatre, repeatedly invokes Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard,” as if Lara, like that play’s central character, were lost in a reverie about herself in her prime.

But Patchett airs the suggestion that Lara is stranded in the past only to gently put it to rest. Despite Duke’s “ubiquitous presence in the world,” Lara notices, scrubbing a lasagna pan to the strains of one of his movies, “I thought of him remarkably little.” Chekhov, with his warnings about the hazards of nostalgia, turns out to be a red herring; a bigger portion of the book’s soul resides in “Our Town,” Wilder’s play about daily life which ends in a cemetery, where the dead are “weaned away from the earth.” Lara uses the text as a touchstone, channelling its mood of elegiac acceptance as she carefully detaches herself from her old wounds and triumphs:

There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go? Now you’re not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well.

Lara’s thinking here feels infused with sensitivity to the personal—to the vividness of life as it pierces a single subject—but the immediacy of pain and joy has mellowed, over time, into something richer and stranger. “Had every sight or sound of him sent me off on a pilgrimage of nostalgia or excoriation I would have lost my mind years before,” Lara says of Duke. Later: “The rage dissipates along with the love, and all we’re left with is a story.”

A story is artificial, which means it can be fun. Lara isn’t so much recalling the summer of 1988 as she is performing it—playing both her younger self and her current one, selectively concocting a PG-rated soap opera for her wide-eyed Zoomers. She finesses, elides. “I’m not telling them the good parts,” she says, meaning the incredible sex with Duke. The girls, participating in the game, cast themselves as a socially progressive Greek chorus. “You can’t say ‘crazy,’ ” one interrupts. When Lara describes Pallace’s “preposterous” legs, they protest that she is objectifying her.

In these scenes, the source of Lara’s contentment is sweetly obvious. When Nell laments the celebrity Lara could perhaps have been, she exclaims, “Look at this! Look at the three of you! You think my life would have been better spent making commercials for lobster rolls?” The pandemic portions of the book conjure an adult world of trade-offs and compromise, in which family offers abundant recompense for lacklustre Google search results. The girls themselves are delicious creations. Emily is fiery; Maisie, a veterinarian-in-training, is sensible; Nell is intuitive, the most in tune with her mother. She shares Lara’s fanciful streak and sometimes wears lipstick to go cherry picking. Musing about whether to pursue an argument with one of her daughters, Lara thinks, “I will always be afraid of waking up the part of Emily that has long been dormant. I will always be afraid of accidentally breaking something in Nell that is fragile and pure. But Maisie is up for it; no one will ever worry about Maisie.”

In other words, the ingredients have been assembled for a wistful meditation on mothers and daughters learning to handle the seasons of their lives. “Tom Lake” guides Lara to equanimity and closure, mostly by awakening her to the value of the people around her. Here, as in much of Patchett’s work, togetherness compensates for loss; being with others, even if they’re not exactly the others you wanted and you’re not with them in exactly the right way, is a genuine form of flourishing.

But the novel’s alchemical transformation of pain into peace feels, at times, overstated. In “Bel Canto,” gunfire interrupted the harmony Patchett painstakingly built between terrorists and captives. “Tom Lake” softens such dissonance. Lara doesn’t just acquiesce to her second act; she discovers that the convergence of motherhood, lockdown, and fruit harvesting has created “the happiest time of my life.” The interlude, she thinks, is “joy itself.” (Nell’s opinion: “I want to get the hell out of this orchard.”) For Lara, the farm is not an earthly place; its red-and-white fields ripple with magic. Amid a “pointillist’s dream” of fruit trees, she can play all her roles at once, reënacting her glory days at Tom Lake, parenting her grown children, and indulging the maternal prerogative of steering the family narrative. Lara sees the selves she’s shed throughout her life jumbled and reallocated among her daughters. Nell shares her “naturalness” onstage, “an ability to be so transparent it’s impossible to turn your eyes away.” Emily, her most difficult child, she construes as a fugitive piece of her own soul: “No matter how many years ago I’d stopped playing Emily, she is still here.” The farm holds, or has held, or will hold, all the people Lara loves. It even encompasses a graveyard—with tangled daisies, a “pretty iron fence,” and “benevolent shade”—where generations of Joe’s family are buried. The Nelsons “resting beneath the mossy slabs . . . had never wanted to be anywhere else,” Lara thinks, projecting her bliss upon the dead.

“Tom Lake” collects enchanted places, sites of congregation like the lake and the stage, or like Chekhov’s cherry orchard and the town in “Our Town.” Patchett suggests that in these timeless locales, with their renewable springs of ghostly personae, characters can safely warehouse past versions of themselves and others. Or at least that’s the idea. Rather than fear the cemetery, Lara and her kids love it and its promise of “everlasting inclusion.” As a girl, Emily “liked to run her fingers along the tombstones, the letters worn nearly to nothing, the stones speckled with lichen.” Lara herself “would lie in the grass between the graves, so pregnant with Maisie I wondered if I’d be able to get up again, and Emily would weave back and forth between the granite slabs, hiding then leaping out to make me laugh.”

As “Tom Lake” goes on, the determined positivity begins to feel slightly menacing, or at least constrictive. Is Lara really that happy? Or is she hiding inside the myth of her happiness to avoid confronting her daughters’ unhappiness and her own shortcomings as a parent? I was tempted into a paranoid reading of the three Nelson girls, scanning for covert signs of distress. Nell, like her mother, dreams of the stage, but she is stuck wearing sad quarantine lipstick, thumbing through plays in her bedroom at night, and practicing lines with her friends over Zoom. Dependable Maisie is always off to deliver a litter of puppies or tend to a calf with diarrhea. Was she forced to grow up too soon? Meanwhile, Emily declares her intention not to procreate. Her decision is a poignant nod to climate change, but it could also be glossed as a salvo against a controlling parent.

Ultimately, though, the novel endorses Lara’s rosy perspective. The girls gratefully receive the tale of Tom Lake—“I’m not sorry to know,” Maisie assures her mom—and the family draws closer. With cherries harvested and blessings scattered, the cast convenes joyfully in the cemetery. Lara thinks, “There is room up here for all of us.” The scene seems oddly unreal, like plastic flowers on a grave. Yet there’s something subversively wise and self-aware about the book’s investment in its own fantasy. “Tom Lake,” the fiction, seems conscious of its status as a magical place, a locus of gentle make-believe. Even as Patchett validates Lara’s performance of contentment, she appears to know that behind the artifice lies a more complicated truth. The same might be said of the graveyard itself, with its friendly daisies and eternally fulfilled ancestors. Strip away the props: there, perhaps, is Forest Lawn cemetery, in Los Angeles, where Patchett and her father were briefly resurrected into one another’s lives. ♦

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‘Tom Lake’ Review: Ann Patchett’s Latest Novel Is A Warm Hug

Ann Patchett’s “Tom Lake” may very well be the first pandemic novel that anyone actually likes. Set among the cherry trees of northern Michigan in the summer of 2020, narrator and protagonist Lara tells her three 20-something-aged daughters a story of the time she dated a movie star named Peter Duke — while avoiding any hint of cringe. Whether it’s Patchett’s ever-prodigious touch or the story’s determined wholesomeness, her ninth novel is reflective and mellow, though by no means prudish — it recounts a hot summer fling, after all. Most of all, it’s rich with the kind of devastatingly real depictions of humanity that readers have come to expect from Patchett.

While in the present day, Lara and her family deal with the daily hard work of the cherry farm (short a few hands because of the pandemic), the young, 24-year-old Lara in her story-within-a-story has an irritatingly perfect life. Discovered by a producer at a high school production of “Our Town,” she goes on to star in a movie, and then to perform in “Our Town” again during summer stock at the eponymous Tom Lake. It’s there that she meets Duke, a then-unknown actor who sweeps her off her feet within the first hour. It’s one of those loves that flares bright but short, and while it yanks the reader along in whirlwind fashion, the mature Lara and her family are the ones who provide the novel’s layers of reflective insight.

Lara’s daughter Emily, named after the character her mother played in “Our Town,” has the frightening intensity of strong-willed eldest daughters, and Lara’s memories of Emily’s years of teenage “hormonal rage” paint a complex and heartbreaking portrait of parent-child relations. Though becoming convinced that your favorite movie star is your true biological father in a fit of delusion might not be a universal teenage experience, the hurt that Emily causes her parents and family is still utterly piercing. Even years later, Lara admits that she is “still somewhat afraid of her.”

Furthermore, it’s through Nell, the youngest and only daughter who inherited Lara’s desire for the stage, that the reader comprehends the significance of a central event in Lara’s story: When she ruptures her Achilles tendon midway through the run of “Our Town.” Although the injury itself isn’t career-ending, this marks the beginning of Lara’s disillusionment with the industry (and with Duke) and the end of her acting career. “While her sisters stare uncomprehending, Nell sobs against [her mother’s] chest,” understanding, as the only other performer in the family, that Lara didn’t go on stage again that summer. It’s an absolutely devastating moment, made even more poignant by Nell’s parallel grief. While Lara has ended her career — and mostly by choice — young Nell, who wants it so badly, has yet to begin. Even worse, she’s losing precious time to the pandemic while she is “beautiful and young in a profession that cares for nothing but beauty and youth.” In these moments, one thinks Patchett must have lived a thousand lives to understand where the keystones of human experience and emotion lie, and then to describe them so adeptly, so accurately.

Though Patchett gets this crucial moment just right, there are moments where the novel falters. Emily voices some climate anxieties in a rather sudden and jarring way, and the girls protest their parents’ occasionally “un-woke” habits in lines that feel added-on. Attempts to comment on race concern Pallace, Lara’s understudy and best friend at Tom Lake, who is seemingly the only Black character in the book. The fact that Pallace ostensibly doesn’t make it to Hollywood, unlike Duke and Lara (who are both white), seems a realistic and quiet nod to the realities of theater — yet it still feels like a half-baked attempt to talk about race.

“Tom Lake” manages to feel both wandering and organic, while maintaining a neatly progressing arc of realizations. But it’s almost too neat: The reader slowly starts to make connections — recognizing the origins of each daughter’s name, recognizing their father, and their home, all within Lara’s dream-like story. Her husband, too, is miraculously never uncomfortable with this deep dive into his wife’s past love. But what kind of pandemic novel would it be if it wasn’t a little escapist? In fact, perhaps what makes this novel so agreeable despite being set in 2020 is that it captures not just the small, hidden, somewhat guilty pleasures of being trapped at home with family, but also both narrates and embodies the longing for escapism — for stories of levity, happiness, and joy.

Though it doesn’t shy from revealing moments of human suffering and sorrow, “Tom Lake” ultimately chooses cheeriness and heart, leaving readers feeling snug and content.

—Staff writer Sara Komatsu can be reached at [email protected] .

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Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2023

New York Times Bestseller

by Ann Patchett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2023

Poignant and reflective, cementing Patchett’s stature as one of our finest novelists.

It’s time to harvest the cherries from their Michigan orchard, but the pandemic means that Joe Nelson; his wife, Lara; and their daughters, Emily, Maisie, and Nell, must pick all the fruit themselves.

To lighten the lengthy, grueling workdays, and prompted by the recent death of world-famous actor Peter Duke, the girls press Lara to tell them about her romance with Duke at Tom Lake, a summer stock company in Michigan, and her decision to give up acting after one big movie role. Lara’s reminiscences, peppered by feisty comments from her daughters and periodic appearances by her gentle, steadfast husband, provide the foundation for Patchett’s moving portrait of a woman looking back at a formative period in her life and sharing some—but only some—of it with her children. Duke flashes across her recollections as a wildly talented, nakedly ambitious, and extremely crazy young man clearly headed for stardom, but the real interest in this portion of the novel lies in Patchett’s delicate delineation of Lara’s dawning realization that, fine as she is as Emily in Our Town , she has a limited talent and lacks the drive that propels Duke and her friend and understudy Pallas. The fact that Pallas, who's Black, doesn’t get the break that Duke does is one strand in Patchett’s intricate and subtle thematic web, which also enfolds the nature of storytelling, the evolving dynamics of a family, and the complex interaction between destiny and choice. Lara’s daughters are standouts among the sharply dawn characterizations: once-volatile Emily, now settled down to be the heir apparent to the farm; no-nonsense veterinarian-in-training Maisie; and Nell, the aspiring actor and unerring observer who anticipates every turn in her mother’s tale. Patchett expertly handles her layered plot, embedding one charming revelation and one brutal (but in retrospect inevitable) betrayal into a dual narrative that deftly maintains readers’ interest in both the past and present action. These braided strands culminate in a denouement at once deeply sad and tenderly life-affirming.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023

ISBN: 9780063327528

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023

LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION

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PERSPECTIVES

SEEN & HEARD

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

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by Kristin Hannah

BOOK TO SCREEN

THE LIFE IMPOSSIBLE

by Matt Haig ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 3, 2024

Haig’s positive message will keep his fans happy.

A British widow travels to Ibiza and learns that it’s never too late to have a happy life.

In a world that seems to be getting more unstable by the moment, Haig’s novels are a steady ship in rough seas, offering a much-needed positive message. In works like the bestselling The Midnight Library (2020), he reminds us that finding out what you truly love and where you belong in the universe are the foundations of building a better existence. His latest book continues this upbeat messaging, albeit in a somewhat repetitive and facile way. Retired British schoolteacher Grace Winters discovers that an old acquaintance has died and left her a ramshackle home in Ibiza. A widow who lost her only child years earlier, Grace is at first reluctant to visit the house, because, at 72, she more or less believes her chance for happiness is over—but when she rouses herself to travel to the island, she discovers the opposite is true. A mystery surrounds her friend’s death involving a roguish islander, his activist daughter, an internationally famous DJ, and a strange glow in the sea that acts as a powerful life force and upends Grace’s ideas of how the cosmos works. Framed as a response to a former student’s email, the narrative follows Grace’s journey from skeptic (she was a math teacher, after all) to believer in the possibility of magic as she learns to move on from the past. Her transformation is the book’s main conflict, aside from a protest against an evil developer intent on destroying Ibiza’s natural beauty. The outcome is never in doubt, and though the story often feels stretched to the limit—this novel could have easily been a novella—the author’s insistence on the power of connection to change lives comes through loud and clear.

Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024

ISBN: 9780593489277

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024

LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

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by Matt Haig

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Tom Lake (Review, Recap & Full Summary)

By ann patchett.

Book review, full book summary and synopsis for Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, an understated novel about falling in love, family and the choices we make.

In Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, Lara recounts a story to her daughters about a brief romance she once shared with a handsome, famous actor, Peter Duke.

Beginning with a community theater audition as a junior in high school from a small town in New Hampshire, Lara tells them about her experiences that led her to Los Angeles and New York and eventually to the cherry orchard she and their father, Joe, own.

This intimate and beautifully written story is about falling in love, growing up, about family and the decisions we make and the paths we choose to go down.

(The Full Plot Summary is also available, below)

Full Plot Summary

The three-paragraph version: It's harvesting season at the cherry orchard that Lara and her husband Joe own, and as they work, Lara recounts a story to her three 20-something daughters of how she once dated Peter Duke, a famous actor. It starts with her being discovered by a director, Bill Ripley, during a community theater production of Our Town, which results in a movie role. She's then cast in another production of Our Town for a theater company in Tom Lake, Michigan. There, she meets a then-unknown actor, Peter Duke. Peter and Lara have a whirlwind affair. While in Tom Lake, Lara makes a trip to a nearby cherry farm belonging to the aunt and uncle of the show's director, Mr. Nelson. It's also revealed that Mr. Nelson is Joe Nelson, who Lara later marries. Lara is charmed by the place, and Duke falls in love with it, commenting that he'd like to come back here.

An injury eventually causes Lara to step down from her role, and her understudy takes over, who Duke secretly starts sleeping with. Bill comes to Tom Lake to bring a heartbroken Lara back to Los Angeles to do publicity for her movie, Singularity, and he scouts Duke while he's there. Once the movie is released, Lara decides she's done with acting. Meanwhile, Duke is on his way to becoming famous. Lara spends some time caring for her grandmother in New Hampshire before moving to New York to work as a seamstress at a theater, where she runs into Joe again and they get together. Joe has been supporting his aunt and uncle financially, and he eventually becomes the owner of their farm. Joe and Lara marry and move to the cherry farm.

In present day, it's revealed that Duke passed away two weeks ago, drowned while boating in Capri. Lara thinks about how she saw him two more times after that summer. Once, when he dropped by the farm years after she and Joe were married. The other instance, Lara does not tell her daughters about. When she was working as a seamstress in New York, he'd called her asking for her to visit him in a mental hospital near Boston, saying he needed to see her as part of his treatment program. She went, but he just wanted to have sex with her, and she complied. Four weeks after Lara tells her daughters the story about Duke, Sebastian shows up at their house. It's revealed that Duke actually purchased a place in the cemetery from the Nelsons many years ago, having once decided he wanted to be buried in their graveyard. Sebastian is here to put him to rest, and together they bury Duke.

The book switches from the present, the Summer of 2020, to the past as Lara recounts a story to her three 20-something daughters about how she once dated Peter Duke, a famous actor. Lara's daughters are all at their farm, Three Sisters Orchards , which Lara's husband Joe runs. Emily lives nearby with her boyfriend Ben after having moved back after college, and the other two, Maisie and Nell, have come back from college to isolate during the pandemic.

In Chapters 1-5 , Lara recalls how she starred in a production of Our Town in the role of "Emily". Bill Ripley, a director, was in the audience as a favor to his sister to watch his niece play a small role. Instead, he ends up approaching Lara and offering her a screen test in Los Angeles for a movie he's making. Lara is flown out twice, and she's given the role.

Meanwhile, in present day, due to many of their seasonal workers not being here, it's all hands on deck for cherry picking season. Joe relies heavily on Emily, since she studied horticulture and intends to take over the farm someday. Maisie is in veterinary school, while Nell is an aspiring actress. Emily's boyfriend Ben is busy helping his parents with their own harvest, since they own an adjoining farm.

As her story continues, Lara explains how the movie's release was delayed, so she ended up doing some commercials in the meantime. Then, after auditioning for and failing to get a role as "Emily" for an Our Town production on Broadway in New York, Lara is offered the opportunity to join a professional theater that needs an "Emily" for a production in Tom Lake, Michigan.

In Chapters 6-10 , Lara arrives in Tom Lake and meets Peter Duke, who charms her. They become an item early on, and it turns into a whirlwind romance. Lara is also fantastic as Emily. She meets Duke's brother Sebastian who comes to visit frequently, and he starts dating Pallace, Lara's understudy and friend. Meanwhile, the marquee name in the show is Albert Long, who used to play a beloved character on TV called "Uncle Wallace". However, Albert's drinking has worsened lately, and the director, Mr. Nelson is worried about it.

In present day, Emily mentions that she and Ben will likely get married between the cherry and apple harvesting seasons, though she's adamant she doesn't want kids because she feels so uncertain of what the world will look like for them and how climate change will affect their farm. Joe and Lara worry about what will happen to their beloved farm.

In Chapters 11-14 , shortly before the show opens, the director invites Lara to his aunt and uncle's cherry orchard along with Sebastian and Pallace. Lara is charmed by it, but Duke falls in love with the place. (It's also revealed at this point that Mr. Nelson is Joe Nelson, Lara's husband, though they don't fall in love until later.) Soon, the show opens. One night, Albert seems to be struggling through his performance, and as the final curtain closes he begins coughing up blood due to an esophageal varices caused by excessive drinking. He's taken to the hospital, and he dies a few weeks later. Joe takes over for Albert when his understudy declines to take on the role. Meanwhile, Duke has begun drinking a lot as well, using his character in the other production they're rehearsing for, Fool for Love , as an excuse since he plays a heavy drinker.

In present day, Lara muses about how she wishes she could've done more to save Duke from himself and from what eventually became of him.

In Chapters 15-18 , Lara ruptures her Achilles playing tennis, and she has pull out of the productions since she won't be walking for the next six months. Pallace takes her place as her understudy, and Duke start sleeping with Pallace. When Sebastian realizes this, there's a fight and he's out of the picture. Bill Ripley arrives at Duke's behest to take Lara back to Los Angeles, since their movie is also finally being released. Lara realizes Duke also brought Bill here to try to get him to see him in the play. Bill considers Duke for a part, and Lara spends the next month in Los Angeles. After all the press and the movie is released, Lara goes home and bids farewell to her life as an actress. Duke is cast in Bill's TV show and is soon on his way to becoming a movie star.

In Chapters 19 - 21 , Lara spends some time in New Hampshire caring for her grandmother Nell until she passes away. She then takes a job as a seamstress for a theater in New York. There, she runs into Joe and they get together. Joe has been supporting his aunt and uncle financially, and he eventually becomes the owner of their farm. Joe and Lara marry and move to the cherry farm.

In present day, it's revealed that Duke passed away two weeks ago, drowned while boating in Capri. Lara thinks about how she'd saw him two more times after that summer. Once, when he dropped by the farm years after she and Joe were married. The other instance, Lara does not tell her daughters about. When she was working as a seamstress in New York, he'd called her asking for her to visit him in a mental hospital near Boston, saying he needed to see her as part of his treatment program. She went, but he just wanted to have sex with her, and she complied.

Four weeks after Lara tells her daughters the story about Duke, Sebastian shows up at their house. It's revealed that Duke actually purchased a place in the cemetery from the Nelsons many years ago, having once decided he wanted to be buried in their graveyard. Sebastian is here to put him to rest, and together they bury Duke.

For more detail, see the full Chapter-by-Chapter Summary .

If this summary was useful to you, please consider supporting this site by leaving a tip ( $2 , $3 , or $5 ) or joining the Patreon !

Book Review

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett was released in August of 2023, and in addition to being a Reese’s Book Club pick, it also has the distinction of having an audiobook that’s narrated by Meryl Streep.

I wasn’t sure at first if it was going to make the cut onto my already lengthy reading list, but the Meryl Streep thing pushed it over the edge.

In Tom Lake , an older woman, Lara, tells her three twenty-something daughters a story of how she once dated a famous actor. Going back and forth from past to present, it describes her current life at the orchard that she and her husband Joe own, and it retraces her history beginning with getting cast in a community theater production of Our Town where she was discovered.

I’ve loved Ann Patchett’s writing for a long time, starting with when I read Bel Canto as a teenager, just starting to dip my toes in the world of literary fiction. Bel Canto was one of those books that reminded me why I love to read.

There are so many small insights and observations scattered throughout Patchett’s novel, about love and life and the things that you forget and the things that stick with you. The writing is nuanced and intimate and evocative in the most lovely way, as she describes their life on their orchard.

Some Criticisms

But as much as I delighted in all of that, at some point the story itself feels a little directionless. It’s a lovingly written book, but my mind started to wander since there were such low stakes in the narrative, both past and present. It’s a story about Lara’s life and the choices she made to go from a brief acting career to a life on a farm with a loving husband and three loving kids. It’s all nice and well, but quaintness of this story and, more importantly, knowing how it all works out, meant that there wasn’t as much forward momentum or tension in the story as I would’ve preferred.

Meanwhile, Tom Lake is meant to be about Lara’s relationship with the famous actor Peter Duke, but those were the parts where my mind started to wander the most. It’s a romance we all know is going to end, and the book keeps reminding us he’s not the one long past the time that’s already well established. His self-centeredness and general unsuitability becomes apparent very early on. I almost think that perhaps it was too early on, since then I was stuck with the realization that I’d have to wade though a whole romance that I’d already lost interest in.

The book tries to frame it as this wildly passionate love affair, but there’s something inherently uninteresting to me about a relationship failing due to someone not caring enough, or not being willing or able to be in a lasting relationship. There’s nothing intriguing or special about it, since it takes nothing to break something or treat someone poorly.

Meanwhile, the man she ends up with was already introduced to us in the first chapter. The present day dynamics of the family captured my interest more, and I kept wishing the Peter Duke stuff would be left behind already.

Read it or Skip it?

Patchett’s capable and insightful writing as well as Meryl Streep’s fantastic narration carried me through large swaths of this book, but to be totally honest there were a few stretches where I got a little bored reading this low-stakes story. Especially when the romance with Peter Duke hits its stride, my mind kept wandering off.

There are a few mildly unexpected things mixed in there, but overall there just wasn’t always enough drama or real tension in the book to propel the story forward. I think if you’re looking for a quaint and unassuming story, this might still appeal to you, but I think I was hoping for something a little more.

Oh, one last thing is that I found the last chapter and essentially the ending of the book to be extremely bizarre. I kind of hated it. It doesn’t really change anything, so it doesn’t matter, but it felt totally out of place to me. It seemed like Patchett was searching for some way to end the story and landed on … whatever that was.

See Tom Lake on Amazon.

Tom Lake Audiobook Review

Narrator : Meryl Streep Length : 11 hours 22 minutes

The narrator is Meryl Streep, of course it’s good.

If this story interests you, it’s a good one to listen to via audiobook. Honestly, I don’t know if I would have gotten through this book if it wasn’t narrated by Meryl Streep.

Hear a sample of the Tom Lake audiobook on Libro.fm.

Discussion Questions

• What part of Lara’s story interested you the most? What appealed to you about that part of her story?
• Why do you think Emily was so upset about the trees being burnt (Chapter 11) as a kid? Why do you think she brings it up now?
• Why do you think Lara gets involved with Jimmy? Why do you think she falls for Peter?
• Which one of the family members did you identify with the most and why?
• Why do you think it upsets Lara so much that she might never play Emily again?
• What did you think of Lara’s decisions about Peter and how she handled that relationship?
• What were you favorite and least favorite parts of the book?
• Why do you think Lara decides to give up her acting career?
• What did you think of the ending of the book?

Book Excerpt

Read the first pages of Tom Lake

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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.

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I read the book twice. The first time, I thought, OK nice story. I’ll read anything Ann Patchett writes. But I didn’t know much about “Our Town”. I viewed the play, with Paul Newman as stage manager, on YouTube. Then I re-read the book. It had greater meaning after that. Provides more context. I’d recommend viewing the YouTube video before reading the book.

ooo interesting insight, thanks for letting me know!

“Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett is a poignant tale of love and loss, beautifully written with emotional depth. Pros include vivid character development and evocative storytelling. However, some may find the pacing slow at times. Overall, Patchett’s novel is a moving exploration of human connection and the complexities of relationships.

Thank you for your wonderful review. I really love Ann Patchett’s books but NOT this one. To me this was very dull and I got to the end thinking I knew in the first 50 pages and should have ended it there.

Your review is much more nuanced than mine but I loved reading it and being reminded of the plot and issues I had.

Review: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett is a quiet and introspective novel about how one’s past impacts the present and future.

I saw the cover of Tom Lake everywhere last summer. The book is a huge success—a Reese Book Club Pick and a NY Times Bestseller. So I know I had to read it. But wow, it took me a while.

I first started Tom Lake last October but I had to take breaks. While I thought the writing was excellent, I had a hard time getting invested into the story, which I detail more below. I finally picked it back up this March and I ended up liking it. Truly a slow-burn read, indeed.

What’s the Story About

The story is set in spring of 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic. The protagonist, Lara, is sheltering in place with her husband and three adult daughters at the family’s farm in Northern Michigan.

While the world is in chaos, the farm is quiet and peaceful. And to serve as a distraction, Lara’s daughters ask their mother about the summer where she had a romance with a man who would eventually become a famous movie star.

Lara tells the story about her past, and with it, interlines with the present. And eventually, everyone is forced to reconsider everything they thought they knew.

Four Years Ago

It’s been four years since the pandemic first began and so much has changed since then—thankfully life has gotten back to normal. But I think all of us probably hold some type of trauma remembering how scary it was those first few months when we didn’t know anything about this new disease. And I remember thinking even then that I was not excited for pandemic era fiction.

I think some stories have handled it better than others. This is probably the best take I’ve read on it. Yes, it’s during a pandemic and the only reason all three daughters are at the farm is a result of it, but it also takes the reader on such a different journey that the pandemic didn’t suck up all the energy of this book.

I think many of us were probably quite introspective at that time and thought about the past. Although for me, I was pregnant with my son Theo (who is now three) so I was thinking about the future and still held on to hope that things would be better, which they are now. Thankfully!

Lara’s Journey

So where did I struggle at first? Well, to be honest, I was not interested in the play. I just wasn’t. I thought it took a long time to get to the ‘good’ parts—when Lara meets Duke. I understand why the author wanted to lay the groundwork but it took a little too long, in my opinion.

Also, I felt, even though we are in Lara’s perspective the entire time, I’m not quite sure if we ever got to know who she really is—she felt like a passive character in a story that is all her own. That quite possibly might be the point and that in the end, she’s completely satisfied with life at the farm. Maybe we shouldn’t question it when she says she’s content.

But this is why this makes for a good book club book—there’s so much to discuss and debate.

There are aspects I liked—talking about the past with her daughters and also thinking about the present and future. At the same time, I didn’t care for the actual play that much. And I wish Lara was more active in her own story, but it is what it is. Overall, I think this is a good read for book clubs and I see why it was so popular.

For book clubs, check out my questions here .

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Author Interviews

Author ann patchett on writing about family secrets in new novel 'tom lake'.

Elena Burnett

Courtney Dorning

Mary Louise Kelly

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with author Ann Patchett on her latest novel Tom Lake , which tackles family, maternal love and the secrets a mother may choose not to share with her children.

Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Audiobook of the Week: Meryl Streep Would Like to Tell You a Story

The actor narrates Ann Patchett’s sentimental new novel, “Tom Lake,” about a Midwestern family.

Credit... Maria Robledo/Trunk Archive

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Deciding what audiobook to listen to requires its own special calculus, related to but distinct from the factors we consider when picking a book off a shelf. From the Book Review’s own endless listening, we will select and review a different title each week, from a range of genres, to help you decide. See you next Friday.

TOM LAKE , by Ann Patchett. Read by Meryl Streep.

Meryl Streep, who has lent her voice to audiobook renditions of Nora Ephron’s “Heartburn” and E.B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web,” is ideal for narrating “ Tom Lake ,” Ann Patchett’s sentimental new novel about a Midwestern family. Among her many laurels, the three-time Academy Award-winning actress is often described as the consummate children’s storyteller. And the plot of “Tom Lake” is organized around one woman who does just that: She tells her children an extended story.

The novel is set during the pandemic, when Lara Nelson finds her three daughters unexpectedly back home on their Michigan orchard. But the drama unfolds largely in retrospect, following Lara’s memories of the summer she dated her co-star (the future celebrity Peter Duke) while putting on a play of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” at the eponymous Tom Lake.

Patchett’s chapters weave between Lara’s flashbacks and her present, where her three daughters are increasingly riveted by their mother’s earlier life. Streep delivers with her signature whimsy, her cadence lilting from wide-eyed innocence to winking wisdom, blurring the nostalgia for small-town Americana with dashes of big-city dreams.

And while Lara withholds certain scandalous details from her prying daughters, the listener gets the full, unedited version. The result is not only meta-textual but — thanks to Streep’s inimitable delivery — meta-theatrical as well.

Jane Hu is a critic whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, Bookforum and elsewhere.

TOM LAKE | By Ann Patchett | Read by Meryl Streep | HarperAudio | 11 hours, 22 minutes

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BookBrowse Reviews Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

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• Aug 1, 2023, 320 pages
• Apr 2025, 320 pages

• Literary Fiction
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About This Book

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Tom Lake centers on a woman telling her grown daughters about her past, including a brief romance with a now-famous movie star.

"The thing about picking cherries is that you can look only at the tree you're on, and if you have any sense, you'll just look at the branch you have your hands in," says Lara, the narrator of Ann Patchett's Tom Lake . Lara and her husband own a cherry orchard in Michigan, and the book takes place during the harvest of the summer month, for which her three grown daughters are onsite to help. It's the middle of the pandemic, so there isn't much else to do, and they beg Lara to tell them the story of how she came to date heartthrob actor Peter Duke when she was younger. When Lara says you can only look at the tree you're on, she's also stating one of the novel's themes. Just as some of their cherries are sweet and some are tart, so are her memories (like everyone's), and it's wisest to focus on what's in front of you. Though the characters describe problems that may befall their crop at...

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Beyond the Book:    Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) and Our Town

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Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

A nostalgic journey into love, memory, and family

• Publisher: Harper
• Genre: Literary Fiction, Historical
• First Publication: 2023
• Language:  English
• Setting: Traverse City, Michigan (United States), New Hampshire (United States, 1984)
• Characters: Lara, Joe, Maisie, Emily, Nell, Peter Duke, Sebastian Duke

There’s something bittersweet about summer’s end—those golden days when the light turns honeyed, the nights grow cooler, and you can feel time slipping away even as you try to hold onto it. Ann Patchett’s latest novel, Tom Lake, captures that poignant, nostalgic mood perfectly. Set during the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020, the story unfolds as a mother recounts a pivotal summer from her youth to her three grown daughters as they pick cherries on their family orchard in northern Michigan. Like the best late summer days, it’s warm, wistful and tinged with melancholy —a book to savor slowly as the seasons change.

A Story Within a Story

At the heart of Tom Lake are two intertwined narratives . In the present day, Lara and her husband Joe are sheltering in place on their cherry farm with their three twenty-something daughters—Emily, Maisie and Nell. To pass the time as they work in the orchard, the girls beg their mother to tell them about the summer she spent as a young actress at a theater called Tom Lake, where she had a romance with Peter Duke—a charismatic actor who went on to become a major Hollywood star.

As Lara recounts that long-ago summer, we’re transported back to 1980s Michigan, where 24-year-old Lara is cast as Emily in a production of Our Town at the idyllic Tom Lake theater. There she meets the magnetic Duke, his tennis pro brother Sebastian, and a talented dancer named Pallace. Swept up in the heady atmosphere of summer stock theater, Lara falls hard for Duke even as she senses the volatility beneath his charm.

Patchett deftly weaves between past and present, contrasting Lara’s youthful infatuation with her settled, contented life decades later. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that summer at Tom Lake was a turning point that set Lara on the path to becoming the woman, wife and mother she is today.

Meditations on Love and Loss

While on the surface Tom Lake is about a summer romance, Patchett uses that framework to explore deeper themes of love , memory, and the passing of time. She captures how our youthful experiences shape us, even as they recede into hazy memory. There’s a bittersweet quality to Lara’s reminiscences—she can recall the intensity of her feelings for Duke, but those emotions now feel distant, almost like they happened to someone else.

Patchett beautifully conveys how our perspective on past loves changes as we age. The Duke that Lara fell for as a starry-eyed 24-year-old is not the same man she encounters years later when he shows up at her farm. Her daughters are fascinated by the idea of their mother’s glamorous actor ex, but Lara has long since moved on, finding deeper fulfillment in her marriage to Joe and life on the orchard.

There’s also an elegiac quality to the novel, a sense of mourning for youth and possibilities not taken. We learn early on that Duke has recently died, adding extra poignancy to Lara’s memories. But Patchett suggests that there’s beauty in accepting life’s seasons, in embracing the path we’ve chosen rather than pining for roads not taken.

Family Bonds

At its core, Tom Lake is a warm, wise novel about family. The easy rapport between Lara and her daughters forms the heart of the story. Their gentle teasing and inside jokes feel utterly authentic—you can sense the deep bonds of love and shared history.

Each daughter emerges as a distinct personality: responsible Emily who plans to take over the farm, scientifically-minded Maisie studying to be a vet, dreamy Nell who longs to act like her mother once did. Through their reactions to Lara’s story, Patchett explores how children struggle to see their parents as full people with complex pasts.

The novel also beautifully captures the rhythms of long-married life through Lara and Joe’s relationship. Their comfortable intimacy and shared commitment to the land stand in contrast to the fleeting passion Lara felt for Duke. Without discounting the power of youthful romance , Patchett makes a case for the richness of lasting love.

A Love Letter to Theater

Theater nerds will find much to love in Tom Lake. Patchett’s depiction of summer stock—the camaraderie, the long rehearsals, the post-show swims—rings utterly true. Her clear affection for Thornton Wilder’s Our Town suffuses the novel. That play’s themes of appreciating life’s simple moments echo throughout Tom Lake.

Patchett captures the particular magic of stepping on stage and becoming someone else for a few hours. But she’s clear-eyed about the challenges of an acting career too. Through Lara’s journey, she explores the often arbitrary nature of success in the arts, and how life’s currents can carry us in unexpected directions.

Pandemic as Backdrop

The novel’s 2020 setting provides a resonant backdrop, with the isolation of lockdown mirroring the remove Lara feels from her youthful self. The family’s work picking cherries takes on extra urgency amidst the uncertainty of the pandemic. There are poignant moments of characters lamenting lost opportunities—Nell mourning her derailed acting career, Emily and her boyfriend postponing their wedding plans.

But Patchett doesn’t dwell heavily on COVID itself. Instead, she uses the pause of lockdown as a framing device, a rare moment when this busy family has time to slow down and share stories. There’s a sense that this period of enforced togetherness is precious even amidst the wider turmoil.

Patchett’s Prose Shines

As always, Patchett’s writing is a joy—insightful, wryly funny, full of perfectly observed details. Her prose has a deceptive simplicity that belies its emotional depth. She can capture a character or mood in just a few deft strokes:

“Duke was so happy when Sebastian was there, we were all so happy, but still, Sebastian’s visits unsettled things, almost as if his calmness allowed Duke to be crazier than he usually was, like a kid who’ll throw himself off of ladders once he knows someone’s there to catch him.”

Patchett excels at illuminating the small moments that make up a life. She finds poetry in the rhythms of farm work, family dinners, long-married couples moving in comfortable tandem. Her descriptions of the Michigan landscape are gorgeously evocative, making you feel the summer heat and smell the ripening cherries.

A Mature Work from a Master Storyteller

Tom Lake feels like the work of a writer at the height of her powers, confident enough to take narrative risks. The story’s structure – with frequent digressions and asides as the daughters interrupt with questions – could have felt choppy in less skilled hands. But Patchett makes it feel organic, like eavesdropping on a meandering family conversation.

There’s a looseness to the novel that mirrors memory itself—the way we circle back to add forgotten details or correct misconceptions. It’s a less tightly plotted book than some of Patchett’s earlier works like Bel Canto or The Dutch House. But that roomier structure allows space for philosophical musings on the nature of love and the passing of time that give Tom Lake its emotional resonance.

Longtime Patchett fans will find echoes of her earlier novels here—the focus on family dynamics from Commonwealth, the exploration of vocation from The Magician’s Assistant. But Tom Lake feels like a step forward too, showcasing a new maturity and willingness to sit with life’s ambiguities.

A Novel to Savor

Tom Lake isn’t a book of high drama or shocking twists. Its pleasures are quieter—the gradual unfolding of a life story , the bittersweet pangs of nostalgia, the comfort of family bonds. It’s a novel to sink into slowly, preferably on a late summer evening with a glass of wine in hand.

Patchett has given us a warm, wise meditation on love in all its forms – youthful passion, lasting marriage, the complicated bonds between parents and children. She reminds us that every love story is unique, that our hearts have room for many kinds of connection over a lifetime.

Most of all, Tom Lake is a testament to the power of stories—the ones we tell about ourselves and the ones we pass down through generations. It’s a novel that will linger with you long after the last page, prompting reflection on your own past loves and the twists of fate that shaped your life. A beautiful addition to Patchett’s already impressive body of work.

If You Enjoyed This Book…

Readers who appreciate Patchett’s warm, insightful exploration of family dynamics might also enjoy:

• Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
• The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
• Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

For more of Patchett’s graceful prose and complex characters, try her earlier novels:

• The Dutch House
• Commonwealth
• State of Wonder

About the Author

Ann Patchett is the author of eight novels, including the Orange Prize-winning Bel Canto and the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Dutch House. She lives in Nashville, where she co-owns Parnassus Books. Tom Lake is her first novel since 2019.

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Book Review: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

By: Author Luka

Posted on Last updated: June 13, 2024

Categories Book Reviews

If you own a hammock, a vintage porch swing, or a snug bay window seat, Ann Patchett’s latest book, “Tom Lake,” will transport you there mentally.

It’s as if this novel has the power to disrupt your fitness tracker, even if you’re just strolling around with Meryl Streep narrating the audiobook in your ears.

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett is a celebrated figure in American literature, known for her novels, memoirs, and essays. She even established an independent bookstore in Nashville to stand against the Amazon giant. She’s like the literary Aunt everyone loves.

Her personal family history, complex and explicitly revealed after her semi-autobiographical work “Commonwealth” in 2016, adds depth to her storytelling. The themes of family intricacies continue in “Tom Lake.”

About the story

The novel invites you into a beautifully simple family setting, reminiscent of a nuclear family in its pre-modern definition. This time, the story revolves around three sisters in their twenties, situated on their parents’ cherry orchard in northern Michigan during the recent pandemic. Thornton Wilder’s influence is palpable in the narrative, reminiscent of “Our Town.”

Lara, the mother of the sisters, shares her past as an actress during lockdown, creating a sense of tranquility despite the challenges. Flashbacks take us through Lara’s acting career, especially her role as Emily in “Our Town.”

The story uncovers Lara’s connections with Peter Duke, her former co-star and ex-boyfriend who went on to become a famous celebrity. The novel examines the concept of inheritance, both in terms of genetics and life experiences.

The daughters’ eagerness to know their mother’s past reveals Lara’s life lessons – that moments of loss and triumph aren’t fixed, evolving over time. The novel has a rustic charm, occasionally simplifying complex themes. While interruptions by the cherry orchard may frustrate, they serve the narrative’s purpose.

Underneath the surface

Beneath the surface, there lies a touching vulnerability in Lara’s daughters – their emotional resonance akin to delicate, bruised fruit. Lara’s purpose in sharing her experiences is to demonstrate that seemingly definitive moments of loss and triumph carry a malleability, an ability to transform over time.

As Lara unfurls her memories before her daughters like a cherished embroidered tablecloth, she unveils the fluidity of life’s highs and lows. The profundity of the forgotten and the transformation of joy and pain emerge as central motifs.

While there’s an undeniable rustic charm to the novel, occasionally carrying a plain-spoken wisdom that may border on simplification, it navigates its own sentimentality with a measured hand. Even as the story confronts expected turns, the emotional thread remains steadfast.

The interruptions caused by the cherry orchard’s activities may frustrate initially, yet they seamlessly align with Patchett’s intention to convey the essence of storytelling, emphasizing the art of revelation and restraint.

Family vibes

What really shines in “Tom Lake” is that cozy family feeling. You’ll find yourself wrapped up in country traditions and sayings, feeling like you’re right there with them.

Lara adds a special flavor to the family dynamic with her past as an actress. It’s like a splash of something unexpected that makes the family even more interesting.

Patchett has this way of sharing little nuggets of wisdom that make you think about life. The book isn’t just about the family – it touches on stuff like how we affect the environment and how time just keeps moving on. But it’s not a heavy read. It’s more like a gentle reminder to appreciate the small things and the connections we have.

“Tom Lake” may differ from Patchett’s previous work, yet it accomplishes a unique feat by portraying a life’s essence through cumulative insights. Lara’s middle age becomes a canvas for reflection, ultimately celebrating the transformation of past wounds into cherished stories. The novel invites readers to find solace in their own narratives.

Final thoughts

“Tom Lake” paints a cozy and folksy picture, filled with pies, quilts, and rural charm. Patchett weaves in country sayings and traditions, creating a warm atmosphere. Lara, despite her age, stands out in rural Michigan, adding to the unique character of the story. The book captures the essence of domestic happiness and generational ties.

Patchett’s subtle wisdom shines through the novel, offering insights into life’s truths and the importance of cherishing small moments. The narrative touches on the impact of human actions on the environment and the fleeting nature of time.

While not aiming to provoke, “Tom Lake” exudes a gentle reassurance, reminding readers of the beauty in everyday life and the connections that span generations. It’s a book that invites you to recline on a comfortable blanket and bask in the soothing glow of Patchett’s storytelling.

If you’re looking for book club discussion questions for Tom Lake, click here !

I love to read and I enjoy exploring a range of genres including contemporary and historical fiction, mysteries, thrillers, nonfiction, and memoirs. If you would like me to review your book, feel free to reach out to me!