Michigan, motherhood, and manic young love
I’ve always been a big reader, but, when it comes to iconic American authors, there are, undoubtedly, some gaps in my knowledge. And while I still need to wind back the clock and dip into the works of some old-school icons like Philip Roth and Herman Melville, this year, there were two particularly glaring voids: Ann Patchett and Barbara Kingsolver. I’ve already written about tackling Demon Copperhead here, and it was only natural that my next fiction pick would be Patchett’s Tom Lake, an equally buzzed-about book from an author most of my friends are shocked I haven’t read.
There were a couple of reasons I wasn’t particularly hot on Tom Lake. The first being: I didn’t have any desire to read a “Covid-era” novel, given that it’s more than fresh in my mind. The second was simply that the plot - as told by the blurb - didn’t really appeal. Tom Lake is set on a cherry farm (don’t like cherries) in Northern Michigan (do love Northern Michigan) in July 2020. Lara Kenison, the matriarch of a family of three girls, is reminiscing on a summer years in the past, during which she was in a regional production of Our Town - and a brief relationship - with a man named Peter Duke who became a megawatt star (in my head, I was equating him with a Brad Pitt type).
A few weeks ago, though, I put out a Q&A on my Instagram Stories soliciting “best books of the year” and a number of respondents selected Tom Lake, which, in turn, prompted more than a few story replies deeming the book “overrated” or “not as good as everyone says” (their words, not mine!) THIS intrigued me. Many people I trusted fell on different sides of the spectrum when it came to this book - and the fact that a book that had initially seemed too innocuous to even interest me was so polarizing amongst my friends was reason enough for me to want to read it.
Tom Lake did not grip me from the start. In fact, I was a bit bored in the beginning. But, even during the lulls in plot, I found myself moved by the poignancy of certain passages and the accuracy of Patchett’s analogies. The book is a lovely, quiet meditation on love in all forms: young love, lasting love, sibling love, and parental love. The book could have been set in the most exciting place on earth, and that still would’ve been my favorite part - the fact that Patchett leaves no stone unturned when it comes to exploring the ways in which humans can - and want to - care for one another.
Yes, on the surface this is a story about Lara Kenison falling in love with Peter Duke, but it’s also about the people who are there to pick them up when they fall out of love (grandparents, siblings, etc), and the ones that stayed all along, reminding them that the choices they made were the right ones.
Patchett acolytes might describe the first half of Tom Lake as languorous, while haters wouldn’t hesitate to use the word “slow,” but in retrospect you can see how the book mimics the rhythms of life - nothing seems to be happening and then it’s everything, everywhere, all at once. The book also isn’t without satisfying plot twists - there are a number of quiet reveals, as well as a couple of bigger ones - that will have you turning the pages for more than just the prose (but, as my friend Alannah - a firm Patchett supporter - described her writing: “she does so much with so little”).
And as for why some friends didn’t like it: I do get it. Like I said, it’s slow, and, at times, it’s a bit sad; Lara has abandoned a feverish youthful romance for a quiet (to some - me, at certain points reading the book - boring) life with a man who might be consistent and kind, but isn’t openly passionate about her in the way that Duke was. It’s unsettling at times; she threw all of that excitement away, for this? But as the story progresses, Patchett utilizes quiet family moments (watching her daughters braid each other’s hair; transform floods of tears into hysterical laughter, etc) to telegraph Lara’s happiness with the life she’s chosen. And, by the end, it’s clear the choice was the right one.
It’s the type of book you’d want to press into the hands of everyone from a girl in her early twenties in the throes of a stressful situationship to a mother or grandmother with 30+ years of marriage under her belt. The wisdom within transcends generations.