Tom Lake
By Ann Patchett
Published 2023
Read July 2024
This reader has read many, but not all, of Ann Patchett’s books including her essay collection, These Precious Days. Once again, this reader is impressed with Patchett’s ability to weave a story unlike any of her previous stories.
This story is set in the spring of 2020 during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic when avoiding others was the primary source of prevention. Lara’s three daughters in their twenties are back on the family fruit farm near Traverse City Michigan as a result of this state of the world: Emily, the oldest and who lives on the property, works with her father, and fully intends to continue the family farm for another generation; Maisie, a vet student who is helping neighbors with their animal problems in a social distancing way; Nell, a theater student who desperately wants to be an actress and fears this pandemic is taking away precious years from her career. The usual crews who helped the Nelsons pick their sweet cherries are mostly not working this year because of the pandemic so it’s up to Lara and the three daughters to pick the sweet cherries which require hand picking. While they pick, they pry from their mother her story of a summer at Tom Lake, a nearby summer stock theater, where she played Emily in Our Town and had a steamy summer romance with Peter Duke who is now a famous TV and movie actor.
Patchett moves between Lara’s narration of her story and the present day to day goings on at the farm. Patchett opens the book when Lara (then Laura) was in high school and was roped by her grandmother into registering people for auditions for her New Hampshire town’s production of Our Town. Lara decides to audition and wins the part of Emily. She’s uncertain about what to do with her life so attends a state university and ends up getting the part of Emily again for her college’s production of the play. She acknowledges she has a very lucky break when the uncle of another cast member attends a performance and decides she’s perfect for a part in a movie he’s producing in Hollywood. After the movie is completed and she’s done a few commercials, it’s suggested she takes advantage of another lucky break—the actress playing Emily in a summer stock theater (Tom Lake) has abruptly left and a replacement is desperately needed.
The structure of the book is pleasant. The reader gets some feel for the large amount of human labor involved in raising cherries near the Lake Michigan shoreline of Michigan, gets a look at Lara’s family, and gets a glimpse of summer stock life and Lara’s steamy romance. Some critics have complained there isn’t much that happens in this book. Well, this book is about life and most lives don’t have lots of extraordinary events in them, but most lives do require decisions to be made now and then that influence the course of that usually ordinary life. That’s mostly what we get in this book although Lara acknowledges the lucky breaks she had and one unlucky break she had that helped her decide a course that she clearly doesn’t regret.
Lots of themes in this book despite the lack of any major calamity: family, friendship, love, loyalty, honor, ambition, regret, personal bravery, loneliness/connectedness. We see a couple of actors/actresses trying to make it in their dreadfully challenging career path and we wonder if Nell will be able to make it. The COVID pandemic provided a device for the structure of the book and fortunately doesn’t otherwise get in the way. It’s possible its use will “date” this book more than others she’s written. But it’s really the multiple interesting characters we get to know in depth or at least a bit that make this book the joy that it is to read. As usual this reader looks forward to more from Ann Patchett.
MarshaReads.com 