“Despite all evidence, it was nearly springtime in New Hampshire. My junior year was seven weeks from its completion but I kept thinking that this was the first day of my true education. None of the books I’d read were as important as this, none of the math tests or history papers had taught me how to act and by “act” I don’t mean on a stage, I mean in life. What I was seeing was nothing less than how to present myself in the world.”
Patchett, Ann. Tom Lake. Harper Collins, 2023. p. 7.
I happened upon Ann Patchett’s newest novel recently when scrolling through my local Library app just checking out some newer releases. There is something about the way Ann Patchett tells a story that is so quiet but powerful, it’s a special kind of magic. She does it again in Tom Lake, a story where a family is pulled back together in early 2020 as the worldwide pandemic is taking hold. This is a story about mothers and daughters, young love, and this rare moment in time that unexpectedly brings them all back together under one roof.
The story begins in 1984 with 16-year-old Lara. She is working along with her best friend Veronica to help with the school theater casting day in a small town in New Hampshire. They are responsible for herding everyone around the auditorium to audition for a play called Our Town. As Lara is watching the auditions for the main role of Emily she gains this clear vision of how the character should really be played and decides on a whim to audition for the part herself. As she says, “Mr. Martin needed to find an Emily in a field with no contenders. All his hopes would be pinned on whatever girl came last. I had audited over four hours of AP acting classes, which didn’t mean I knew how to act, but I sure as hell knew how not to. All I had to do was say the words and not get in the way” (Patchett, p. 17). Needless to say, she nails it. There is a talent scout in the audience watching the auditions who finds her and says he has a part in a movie he’d like to have her audition for. This one decision to audition for the part of Emily sets off a chain of events that lead Lara to Hollywood and a relationship with an actor who is at the start of his career and would go on to become very famous.
In present day, early 2020, Lara lives on a cherry farm in Michigan and is telling the story to her three daughters of how she came to meet this famous actor before he was famous. The pandemic has just begun and all three of her young adult daughters have come home for lockdown. It turns into a magical time no one thought they’d have again with all of them living under one roof again. The novel goes back and forth in time as Lara weaves her tale for her daughters in between trying to keep their cherry farm up and running with very few employees and only themselves to do all the harvesting.
Buy or Borrow…
While this is a such beautiful book, it’s a Borrow, which for me means I don’t expect I will read it again. Don’t get me wrong, it kept my attention and I wanted to hear the story but it was also very intense and hard. When a story is that melancholy I keep the experience with me always and don’t usually feel a need to relive it again.
You can find a hard copy in your local library in the Fiction section (IBSN 9780063327528). In my area, Stanislaus County in Central California, you can download the Library app and get everything in a one-stop shop. I cannot say enough about how great this app is for really taking full advantage of everything our local libraries have to offer.
Get the audiobook. If your local library uses apps like Cloud Library or Hoopla, you can connect that app to your library card and check out the Audiobook for FREE!
You can download the book through Audible which is subscription based. They offer a free seven day trail period and you can also purchase individual books through the app if you prefer not to have a subscription service.
You can also buy the eBook through Apple Books or again, you can also get it FREE from your local library if they use Cloud Library or Hoopla!
And if you’d like, you can buy it though the author’s website, on Amazon or at Barnes & Noble.
Happy reading!
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