Tom Lake is the newest work of fiction by Ann Patchett, award-winning author of The Dutch House and Commonwealth, that follows a family as they reconvene on their Michigan cherry farm during the 2020 pandemic. As life pauses all around them, Lara, her husband, and their three adult daughters head out into the orchard to harvest cherries, working long days to keep up with the pace of nature. To help pass the time, the girls ask their mother to tell them the story of when she dated world-famous actor Peter Duke back in the day. Reluctant, but eventually worn down by her daughters’ cajoling, Lara calls up memories of her time at Tom Lake, a summer stock theater company where she played Emily in Our Town and fell in love with her co-star. The novel alternates between two equally compelling timelines, transporting the reader to the late 1980s whenever Lara picks up her story, and returning with her to the present to look at a family savoring the sweet, complicated refuge of home amidst life changes.
With its immersive storytelling, its subtle yet revelatory insights into family, love, and marriage, and its pervasive, clear-headed optimism, Tom Lake absolutely blew me away. In fact, I have a sneaky feeling this will be one of my favorite books of the year. I expected no less from Ann Patchett, who routinely publishes incredible work (and just seems like a lovely person, in general… I dare you not to fall in love with her after listening to her interview on the NYT’s Book Review podcast); her novels and her nonfiction essays flow with masterful ease, and are always filled with warmth and honesty. From the surface, Tom Lake can seem like a simple story, but its depth lies in the details—the glance exchanged between a wife and her husband, the lunch a mother packs for her daughters, the memory a woman keeps to herself—and Patchett is so good at catching the little moments that fill out a life. Like the play Our Town, which plays a recurring theme in Lara’s life and the novel, Tom Lake asks questions about what gives time meaning and whether it’s possible to fully appreciate life while we’re living it. And while those big questions give the novel gravity, there’s also plenty of fun to be had exploring the backstage life of a theater and the recklessness of a summer romance. Tom Lake is a joy, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
I’d recommend this book to…
- Anyone looking for a moving story about family that pays homage to an old classic… it’s similar in theme to Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
- Anyone who loves profound yet unpretentious writing… it’s similar in style to Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
- Anyone interested in a life-affirming novel laced with nostalgia… it’s similar in tone to This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub
