Tom Lake

I think I loved this, especially because it was a calm, interior-focussed book. I felt I was sitting with the mother and listening to her tell the story of her life. No violence was a nice relief as well. I liked that it takes place within the confines of the Covid lockdown because it gave a container in which to tell an important story that might never have been told in another situation.

How rare to find a book with so much love in it – past love, family love, romantic love…

Ann Patchett is well-known for her gorgeous writing, and not surprisingly, I was swept away by this book.

Long ago, Lara had a relationship with the famous actor Peter Duke, and she shares the story of their romance with her three adult daughters as they hunker down at the family’s cherry orchard during the pandemic.

The chapters about the love affair were compelling, but I connected even more deeply with the relationships between the women. As an added bonus, the glorious Meryl Streep narrated the audiobook, and I swapped between the digital and audio versions of this one because I… show more.

This book is the most recently published novel on this list. I love all of Patchett’s works, but this one, in particular, was a delight in its use of its frame—Lara telling the story of her acting career and fling with Peter Duke to her three daughters while quarantining during the pandemic in the family cherry orchard.

Each of the daughters has built up the myth of Lara’s brief brush with fame, but in a twist of dramatic irony, only the reader gets the full story.

Whenever I open a book written by Ann Patchett, I become immediately absorbed in the story and have to keep reading. Tom Lake was no exception.

The novel takes place in 2020. The adult children of Lara and her husband, Jim, have all returned to their cherry farm in Michigan to isolate during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the family works to harvest the cherries, Lara tells her daughters the story of the summer she dated the famous actor Peter Duke, when the two appeared in a production of "Our Town" at Summer Stock Theater in Tom Lake, Michigan. As the… show more.

This is one I really could not put dow; way too many late nights reading! It was so different from all of the other books that I read this past year.

Lara tells her three adult daughters (who return home during the pandemic) a story from her youth about the summer she spent at Tom Lake. Her girls are particularly interested because she was acting in a play that summer with a fellow actor who became quite famous.

Not all of the characters from her youth are particularly likable characters- but they are very interesting characters. Eventually, the memories she… show more.

I have a long history of loving Ann Patchett’s writing, her New Yorker articles, the gorgeous collections of essays, and, beginning with Bel Canto, her novels.

Tom Lake is no exception. In Covid lockdown on a Michigan cherry farm, a mother, a father, and three grown daughters isolate. But this novel is neither dark nor fraught. Rather, I found a literary fairy tale, told by the inimitable Patchett, our Scheherazade, that led me into an enchanted forest (or, more accurately, cherry orchard) of allusions to Chekov, to Our Town, to Pasternak and Sam Shepard and more, much more, in… show more.

I “met” Ann Patchett over Zoom when we were interviewing her in preparation for her appearance as our Roswell Reads guest author, and she was a lovely person and, of course, a brilliant writer. I also like the fact that she owns an independent bookstore and is a big supporter of writers and readers.

I have two daughters, and I can relate when the protagonist was sharing her early life with a famous movie star with her three daughters. Her setting was so real I had to look it up to see if it really existed off the page. I… show more.

I loved the intimacy of this novel.

Ann Patchett achieves another success in this colorful account of a retired actress telling her daughters the significant events of her life: theater, Hollywood, love, and marriage, at her home on a cherry farm in Michigan. Switching episodes from past to present and back, she opens windows on her former life, satisfying marriage, and the costs of the success of former loves.

In the best sense, this is a family story, told with humor and strong emotion, letting the reader in on secrets not revealed to the daughters.

I enjoyed the setting of the cherry farm and the summer stock theater group, both of which I knew little about. I was intrigued by the relationship between the mother and her daughters, as well as the book partially being set during the pandemic. I have not read many (any?).

I thought the way the author allowed small tidbits of the book’s mysteries to play out was brilliantly executed. I didn’t see several of them coming.

I have only read one other Ann Patchett novel, Bel Canto, and I enjoyed it so I’m not sure why I waited this long… show more.

The combination of the beauty of Ann Patchett’s use of words coupled with her handling of two delicate topics: a carefully interwoven reference to the Pandemic showing its impact on the characters without making it the focus of the story and the relationship between a mother telling a tale of an eventful time in her life to her daughters, makes this a must-read.

I didn’t want the book to end.