My Amazon and Goodreads review of Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (Rating 4) – Four on the Aisle. In Ann Patchett’s novel Tom Lake, three rapt daughters urge their mother, Lara, to tell them about her early days as an actress while they pick cherries on the family farm in northern Michigan. Patchett’s narrative shifts smoothly between youth’s infatuation and midlife’s contentment. As a writer of multi-generational novels (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire her cross-age agility. Unfortunately, Patchett is less facile differentiating between the daughters, other than identifying them as the horticulturist, the veterinarian, and would-be actress. Lara’s beloved husband is also a cipher. And her fellow actors in Our Town, the Thornton Wilder play whose wistfulness infuses the novel, are briefly interesting as characters, but never emerge as people. Perhaps this indistinctness is the inevitable result of a narrative dominated by the storyteller mother. I wondered whether Patchett, herself a storyteller, wanted to be Lara, swept up in a whirlwind youth before happily settling into writing and owning a bookstore. If so, I get it. As I read Tom Lake, I spun my own “back in the day” story for my daughter and grandsons. I expect other readers will do the same. I hope they’re satisfied with the tales they tell themselves, because Patchett’s, while entertaining, does not merit a standing ovation when the curtain comes down.
A novel infused with the wistfulness of “Our Town”
Why writers write: “Why am I compelled to write? Because the world I create compensates for what the real world does not give me.” – Gloria E. Anzaldúa
