Tom Lake

by Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett’s new novel, Tom Lake, takes place during this latest pandemic, but isn’t about the pandemic. The circumstances common to so many of us, of being isolated with family or a small circle of friends, serves as the parentheses within which the story unfolds.

Patchett, you may recall, is the addictive award winning writer of These Precious Days, Bel Canto, The Dutch House, and other works of fiction and nonfiction. 

Tom Lake is both a lake and a summer theatre in Michigan where much of the action takes place. Lara and Joe are the parents of three girls on the cusp of adulthood when the pandemic throws them together on the family cherry orchard for the duration. The girls want to hear about when Lara was an actress doing Our Town at Tom Lake and dated an actor who would later become a big Hollywood star.

Emily was long certain that movie star Peter Duke was her real father. Maisie is a veterinarian in training whose education was interrupted by the pandemic. Nell wants to be a star, and so wants to hear of her mother’s time in theatre. They work together in the trees at harvest season, picking cherries tart and sweet, listening to Mom’s story.

If you’ve read Bel Canto, especially, you know how deftly Patchett binds readers to every character. (If you’ve not read it, boy, do you have a wonderful experience awaiting you!) No matter how flawed, tortured, or objectionable they or their behaviors may be, Patchett doesn’t throw a character under the bus. You may not like them, but you will get them. Along the way, she will also make you laugh out loud, because of a quip, or with delight in a well-written phrase or well-observed foible. 

Who are these people, this mother and father? How did they get to be who they are now? Do they have regrets, or are they content, or even happy? Do they have tips? Young people trying to figure out the world and their places in it may look to their parents’ experiences for clues. What to do or not to do, that is the question.

For those whose stories have been mostly lived already – what do they see when they look back over the road they’ve traveled? Do they have regrets – or feel like they “just missed getting hit by a train”? How did their decisions reflect or resist the larger culture? Which relationships last? How important is it to find “a place that made the tightness in my chest relax”? It’s all mystery. Sometimes small decisions have big consequences; sometimes bumper crops are not the boon we think they will be.

Patchett says, speaking of the work of thespians, that “Dancing and singing is all about working your ass off so that people think you just roll out of bed dancing and singing.” The same may be said of writing.

Patchett is simply masterful, and makes the telling of compelling stories look effortless, book after book, page after page. She makes readers think it’s all about the gift, not about the discipline, the work, the multiple drafts, the distractions. The result is writing that makes reading deceptively effortless. 

Patchett is never pedantic or preachy: a story should be a good story first and foremost, and not a lesson with a moral we are obliged to swallow. But, like life, lessons are there if we have the time to look. Sometimes, while harvesting the fruit we’ve worked so hard to produce, we need to try one, see how we’re doing. 

“All the world’s a stage.” In this case, Thornton Wilder’s play is the thing. A pandemic is another great time to consider how to live life in a world that can interrupt and upend the lives we are living and plans we are making. We can seek the greatness that everyone on LinkedIn tells us they have created – and you can, too! – but most of us live lives of quiet routine, riding life’s waves as best we can. 

Patchett is a wise and articulate observer of the lives we lead or hope to lead, feel compelled to lead. Regardless of whether our trajectory is great or humble, we need good company to make a good trip. Patchett – and her characters – reliably, memorably provide that.