"Tom Lake is a book to be savored—the once-in-a-blue-moon type." — San Francisco Chronicle
“A swoony, luminous reminder about the endurance of love and happiness in a broken world.” — Oprah Daily
“A tender, absorbing tale about becoming who we are.” — People
"A searching reflection on the relationships between theater and life, romance and realism, Tom Lake is perhaps Patchett’s finest novel yet.” — Boston Globe
"Tom Lake is about romantic love, marital love and maternal love, but also the love of animals, the love of stories, love of the land and trees and the tiny, red, cordiform object that is a cherry. . . . This generous writer hits the mark again with her ninth novel." — Washington Post
"Wise. Beautiful. With an elegant soft touch….Brilliant, of course.” — Good Morning America
“A quiet and reassuring book…highly conscious of…[the] human failure to appreciate the little things.” — New York Times
"One of our greatest living chroniclers of love and marriage—and its resounding impacts over generations—is back this summer … Expect wonder; Patchett always delivers." — Elle
"The perfect summer novel." — The Atlantic
"Tom Lake is about love in all its many forms. But it is also about death and the ephemeral and how everything goes by so damned fast. It is an elegy of sorts but also a promise that there will be magic no matter what.” — Los Angeles Review of Books
"Patchett’s intricate and subtle thematic web…enfolds the nature of storytelling, the evolving dynamics of a family, and the complex interaction between destiny and choice….These braided strands culminate in a denouement at once deeply sad and tenderly life-affirming. Poignant and reflective, cementing Patchett’s stature as one of our finest novelists." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"As this spellbinding and incisive novel unspools, Patchett brings every turn of mind and every setting to glorious, vibrant life, gracefully contrasting the dazzle of the ephemeral with the gravitas of the timeless, perceiving in cherries sweet and tart reflections of love and loss.” — Booklist (starred review)
"Patchett is at the top of her game." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Patchett is a writer of enormous warmth.” — Wall Street Journal
"A compelling narrative about the secret lives of parents—and how to find happiness in the midst of a long life.” — Time
"[A] poignant novel from Ann Patchett, caring as ever." — Vanity Fair
"Tom Lake…[takes] its time to marvel over the quiet drama of ordinary living: a strong marriage, a loving family, a place to gather at the end of the day.” — Houston Chronicle
"Tom Lake is a beautiful, stirring book that sneaks up on you and makes a deep impression, partly because you’re left asking yourself: “What have I just read?” The moment I finished it, I wanted to go back and start again." — Sunday Times (London)
"Tom Lake is a warm, funny book about kind people who do the best they can." — Minneapolis Star Tribune
“[Patchett] writes with deep attention to our country’s changing culture while never taking her eye off narrative. Each book uses a traditional storytelling structure — lyrics, midrash, folk tales — while pushing at the edges of what a form can contain, cramming it with modern human concerns, triumphs and tragedies.” — Los Angeles Times
“Who is better, more nuanced, or more surprising on matters of love and family than Patchett?. . . . [A] heady voyage into the past, with a delicately observed story that is also constantly shifting the ground beneath our feet." — Literary Hub
"Subversively wise and self-aware." — New Yorker
"Fans of The Dutch House and Commonwealth will be more than satisfied with Ann Patchett's latest novelistic exploration of love and family dynamics." — Harper’s Bazaar
"Patchett's prose is elegant, her wit abundant, her sense of family dynamics and the complexities of love subtle and insightful. Tom Lake is an enthralling story." — Tampa Bay Times
"Across her oeuvre Patchett has proven herself a generous, meticulous mentor, and Tom Lake is one of this year’s triumphs.” — Chapter 16
"Patchett, beloved bookseller and chronicler of people thrown together in patched families and hostage situations, turns her attention to love — youthful, marital, fleeting, enduring." — NPR
“Meryl Streep…is ideal for narrating Tom Lake…. Streep delivers with her signature whimsy, her cadence lilting from wide-eyed innocence to winking wisdom, blurring the nostalgia for small-town Americana with dashes of big-city dreams." — New York Times Book Review
"Tom Lake is Ann Patchett’s best novel." — Hudson Review
"With her latest novel, Patchett is unabashedly Chekhovian…. If you’re so inclined, Meryl Streep narrates the audiobook, which allows you to savor every word as only a consummate actor like Streep can deliver them.” — Broadway Direct
"Intelligent, poignant,…absorbing….It channels great literature…[and] showcases storytelling expertise." — Washington Examiner
“Best of all in my reading experience this year was Ann Patchett's Tom Lake….It's a beautiful, loving story. And its echoes of Our Town are spot on.” — Daily Kos
"Reading the book feels, deliciously, like slipping into 'Our Town' and having a conversation with it; it’s both tribute to the play and a moving story of its own." — Seattle Times
"Patchett is a consummate storyteller whose fluid, naturalistic writing style makes reading her novels an effortless journey….Tom Lake does not disappoint." — Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Ahh…Ann Patchett has a new read and we couldn’t be happier….It’s cozy, and feel-good, and we recommend reading with a bowl of cherries.” — The Skimm
"This rich and subtle tale is infused with insight into love, loss and the power of making the right decisions." — Woman & Home (UK)
"Patchett celebrates not just the smallest events of our lives, but “small” lives themselves." — Financial Times
"A new Ann Patchett novel is always cause for celebration... and Tom lake could be one of her best." — inews
“Patchett masterfully weaves an evocative story of love, hope, and familial bonds, offering a profound meditation on finding happiness amid life’s uncertainties.” — BookBub
“[This] quiet novel awakens gratitude for life’s lessons.” — Christian Science Monitor
★ 2023-04-24
It’s time to harvest the cherries from their Michigan orchard, but the pandemic means that Joe Nelson; his wife, Lara; and their daughters, Emily, Maisie, and Nell, must pick all the fruit themselves.
To lighten the lengthy, grueling workdays, and prompted by the recent death of world-famous actor Peter Duke, the girls press Lara to tell them about her romance with Duke at Tom Lake, a summer stock company in Michigan, and her decision to give up acting after one big movie role. Lara’s reminiscences, peppered by feisty comments from her daughters and periodic appearances by her gentle, steadfast husband, provide the foundation for Patchett’s moving portrait of a woman looking back at a formative period in her life and sharing some—but only some—of it with her children. Duke flashes across her recollections as a wildly talented, nakedly ambitious, and extremely crazy young man clearly headed for stardom, but the real interest in this portion of the novel lies in Patchett’s delicate delineation of Lara’s dawning realization that, fine as she is as Emily in Our Town, she has a limited talent and lacks the drive that propels Duke and her friend and understudy Pallas. The fact that Pallas, who's Black, doesn’t get the break that Duke does is one strand in Patchett’s intricate and subtle thematic web, which also enfolds the nature of storytelling, the evolving dynamics of a family, and the complex interaction between destiny and choice. Lara’s daughters are standouts among the sharply dawn characterizations: once-volatile Emily, now settled down to be the heir apparent to the farm; no-nonsense veterinarian-in-training Maisie; and Nell, the aspiring actor and unerring observer who anticipates every turn in her mother’s tale. Patchett expertly handles her layered plot, embedding one charming revelation and one brutal (but in retrospect inevitable) betrayal into a dual narrative that deftly maintains readers’ interest in both the past and present action. These braided strands culminate in a denouement at once deeply sad and tenderly life-affirming.
Poignant and reflective, cementing Patchett’s stature as one of our finest novelists.
