“The rage dissipates along with the love, and all we’re left with is a story.”
Ann Patchett’s book Tom Lake is about a woman named Lara, who writes about her summertime romance with renowned actor Peter Duke.
“It’s about falling so wildly in love with him—the way one will at twenty-four—that it felt like jumping off a roof at midnight. There was no way to foresee the mess it would come to in the end, nor did it occur to me to care.”
The narrative is given from Lara’s point of view, as she tells her three girls about what happened that summer during the first COVID-19 lockdown.
“You can’t pretend this [Covid] isn’t happening,” Maisie said. I couldn’t, and I don’t. Nor do I pretend that all of us being together doesn’t fill me with joy. I understand that joy is inappropriate these days and still, we feel what we feel.”
The past, when Lara and Peter first met and fell in love while acting in a play of Our Town at Tom Lake, a theatre group in Northern Michigan, and the present, where Lara and her girls are working on their family’s cherry farm in Michigan, alternate throughout the book.
“I look at my girls, my brilliant young women. I want them to think I was better than I was, and I want to tell them the truth in case the truth will be useful. Those two desires to not neatly coexist, but this is where we are in the story.”
The themes of love, grief, and regret are all explored in this book. This tale explores the influence of memory and how the past may affect the present.
“She’s not going to tell her daughters the whole story, but nobody ever tells anybody the whole story. I mean, we all edit our stories based on our audience. I’m going to tell a story to my husband one way, to my best friend one way, to you one way. It’s not that you’re lying. It’s just that you shape your story to fit your audience.”
The book also explores the concept of family and how our interactions with our parents and kids can impact our entire existence. Patchett’s observations on marriage, parenting, and the complex nature of love give the narrative depth and interest.
“There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go? Now you’re not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well, until one morning you’re picking cherries with your three grown daughters and your husband goes by on the Gator and you are positive that this is all you’ve ever wanted in the world.”
Readers will be drawn to Patchett’s endearing characters. Lara is a likeable and nuanced lead character who battles her allegiance to her husband Joe and her affection for Peter.
“What was it like?” she asks me again. It was like being a leaf in a river. I fell in and was carried along.”
Peter is an endearing and enigmatic actor with his own shortcomings. Although Lara’s girls have their own thoughts and judgements, they are also inquisitive and ready to hear their mother’s narrative. The book also has a group of intriguing and charming ancillary characters.
Patchett writes in a simple, concise manner while conjuring up vivid scenarios that take the reader to many places and times.
“There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go? Now you’re not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else.”
She skillfully reveals the personalities and feelings of the individuals through dialogue and description. In order to further emphasise the topics of the book, the author also employs striking symbolism and imagery.
“In the summer the pear trees were fine. In the summer, all that is hideous about a pear tree is hidden by leaves and pears. But once those disguises were removed they were nothing but acres of murderous psychopaths emboldened by darkness.”
I throughly enjoyed the behind-the-scene insights into the life of an actress and a theatre troupe.
“We were members of the audience and they were slender gods, brilliant and terrifying. They lit the room with the lightning of their drunken grief and extravagant love.”
This book was absolute perfection. If you want to experience perfection elevated, do listen to the audiobook, as narrated by Meryl Streep. Need I say more? Just imagine her reading this sentence:
“It’s not that I’m unaware of the suffering and the soon-to-be-more suffering in the world, it’s that I know the suffering exists beside wet grass and a bright blue sky recently scrubbed by rain. The beauty and the suffering are equally true.”
Long after I finished reading it, Tom Lake continued to resonate with me as a thought-provoking and inspirational book.
“We clump together in our sorrow. In joy we may wander off in our separate directions, but in sorrow we prefer to hold hands.”
Anyone who appreciates Ann Patchett’s writing or is searching for a book that delves into the themes of love, loss, and forgiveness should definitely read the book. I am giving it ALL the stars.
With thanks to Jonathan Ball Publishers for the opportunity to read this book.
About the book
https://www.jonathanball.co.za/component/virtuemart/tom-lake
Category: Fiction
ISBN: 9781526664280
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
On sale: August 2023
Format: Paperback
