Tom Lake — Books, Beauty, & Buys

By: Ann Patchett
Published Year: 2023
Publisher: Harper
Pages: 309

Summary (Provided by Goodreads): In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.

First Impressions

This book is one of Reese’s book club picks, however, it wasn’t one that jumped out at me. I think I saw this cover and heard about this book multiple times before finally picking it up. So, not the strongest first impression. I just don’t think the color or the title does much to draw anyone in.

What I thought

I LOVED this book.

This story takes place during the shut down portion of 2020. Lara and her husband own a cherry farm in Northern Michigan and their three adult daughters are back living at home due to the pandemic. In order to pass the time, the girls ask their mother to tell the full story of the time that she dated a movie star. This story flips back and forth between the summer that Lara acted and dated Peter Duke and 2020 with her husband and daughters.

I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t expect much from this book but I absolutely loved it. The story moves so smoothly and I devoured it in a weekend. I needed to know Lara’s story and how she ended up where she was. There were twists and turns I didn’t expect and I enjoyed every minute of the journey.

Someone asked me if this was a character driven novel and I feel like sort of? It feels hard to pinpoint. Yes, it’s about Lara ad her journey as well as he daughters, but there is a plotline that pushes the story forward. I never felt like I was bored or just hearing Lara spew boring nonsense.

My family vacationed in Northern Michigan so I loved reading about that setting. One of my friends listened to the book on audiobook since it’s read by Meryl Streep. She pointed out, before I started reading, that the book sometimes jumps abruptly from the past to the present and it can take a second to reorient yourself to the story. Having read a physical copy, I found it pretty easy to keep track of who was talking and when we were in the story. However, I could see if you’re not fully focused or if you’re listening to it, how this could be a little jarring.

Interestingly, I’ve read one other book by Patchett and I don’t remember loving it. This book has changed my mind a little, so I’m curious to read some of her other books. I think what I loved most about this story was the simplicity. It feels like a very real story that could have happened to your mother or grandmother. I loved all of the characters in this story. The daughters were so unique and I loved the reveal of where their names came from as the story went on.