Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
A pandemic novel with a cherry on top
In 2013 beloved novelist Ann Patchett published a charming book of essays called This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, taking its title from a piece about her second marriage to a kindly doctor from her hometown of Nashville. It is an essay full of regret, uncertainty and cautious hope – the very mixture that makes me enjoy Patchett’s work. Her new novel runs the risk of tipping the scales too far in favour of optimism. Those who know me well will understand that too much positivity can really ruin a novel for me, but I do recognise that many readers are crying out for stories that show us the best sides of ourselves. There are many people who are content with their decisions and their lot, and perhaps they need representation too! In other words, Tom Lake could have been subtitled, ‘This is the Story of a Happy Family’. Make of that what you will.
The novel splits its time between a family in lockdown on their cherry orchard in Michigan during the pandemic, and a sultry summer production of the play Our Town performed in Tom Lake in which our heroine Lara (now happy wife and mother of three daughters) found herself young, beautiful and in love with a future movie star. As the days of cherry-picking wear on, Lara slips playfully into the role of Scheherazade, finally spinning this long-requested tale from the past to an eagerly awaiting audience of daughters. Patchett wants to remind us of the sacredness of the time and space afforded by the pandemic in allowing conversations that would never have otherwise occurred.
Lara’s tale of being a young actress has a dreamlike quality, almost like a play itself with daughters Nell, Maisie and Emily assuming the role of heckling chorus. In the story of Lara’s infamous summer, Patchett captures wonderfully the lust and spontaneity of youth, and seems to revel in the opportunity to paint a simpler world full of sunshine, talent and egos. The telling of the story is punctuated by Lara’s insistence that it is not a time in her life that holds much weight for her any more. It feels almost like a swindle to follow a story whose teller keeps assuring us how little it now matters. Either our narrator is unreliable or the stakes are quite low. I kept waiting for darker realities to emerge. And while there were some more sobering secrets that don’t make it out into the light of the cherry orchard, for the most part this is an ode to the redemptive power of family togetherness. Patchett presents us with an unapologetically content mother of three interesting, loveable women, and wife to a truly decent man – and that’s just grand, but I’m not sure it’s a great novel.