Guest review by Janelle Bailey, avid reader and always learning; sometimes substitute teaching, sometimes grandbabysitting, sometimes selling books

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

This one grabbed my head and heart in soooooo many wonderful ways.

I understand exactly why and how this book did this to me, and it may or may not, then hit every reader exactly the same. My deep fondness for the play Our Town and my own “having” of adult daughters were two-fold connections in complex ways to this novel.

One can definitely enjoy this book without having a deeply personal connection to Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, but if you, reader, have never read it before OR did in high school but don’t remember it at all, I recommend reading it again now–or watching it–before taking on the gorgeousness that is Tom Lake.

If, instead, Our Town long ago or more recently took up residence in your heart and soul because you taught it and/or read it aloud so many times that you lost count a long, long time ago, or at any point in time played a role in it…then you are in for an absolutely amazingly allusive and immersive treat–and that much like a homemade version of whatever treat from your past would most awe you in some stranger serving you a plate of it that tastes JUST LIKE you used to enjoy, and the whole thing will take you right back to some time or place or experience that you’ve not thought of for a long time, maybe, but once the buttons on the time machine are all pushed, it all comes right back to you and immediately–the smells, the taste, the view from the cemetery, the entire and wholesomely encapsulating feel of it all.

For this mom of adult daughters, there are additional connections to be made as well. Knowing as I do that Ms. Patchett does not have children of her own, I found these things as she presented them to be much more Our Town-like and idyllically nearly utopian-ideal-unreal, as well…and yet I aspire to the kind of connections she describes here…hope for yet someday.

For the reader of Tom Lake who has neither Our Town nor adult daughters in their own experiences, there is still an absolutely beautiful story to read here that will take anyone back to their own coming-of-age-ness and pondering the things that happened which contributed to the adults they’ve become. It enriches one’s personal history, as I see it, making important the little things that got us each to “here,” to consider, even, that perhaps they are worthy of storytelling/sharing as well.

Truly, none tell stories quite as well as Ms. Patchett does. Here she resurrects Thornton Wilder’s voice–perhaps that is hers–to bring it all back to life again: New Hampshire, Our Town, LA and the high (and low) acting/movie life, Tom Lake and summer stock, New York, and this absolutely beautiful orchard and family farm in Michigan–home–as well as all that unites this family: Emily, Maisie, and Nell home in the spring of 2020 to generously listen to their mom’s stories.

This is an absolutely gorgeous read.

Come back next Monday for another book review!