Some months, we like to send subscribers books we hope they might never have discovered if it weren’t for their subscription. Other months, though, we think there’s joy to be found in receiving an eagerly anticipated book from a beloved author. Sure, the book will be everywhere, but they will be one of its first readers. This is one of those months, dear readers. Introducing the brand-new Ann Patchett and, with it, the promise of a profound read and a reminder that there is goodness in the world.
Tom Lake, Patchett’s ninth novel, is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. An early review made the shrewd observation that so many books about love are, in fact, books about heartbreak. Not Tom Lake. While a heart or two might get broken along the way, the book is a glorious celebration of love in all its forms - marital, maternal, familial, old and new, lost and reimagined.
Set on a cherry orchard in Michigan during the pandemic, Tom Lake is the story of a mother recounting a youthful relationship with a now-famous actor to her grown daughters. Hearing the story causes the daughters to reconstruct how they perceive both their mother and themselves. Exploring destiny, choice, family, and the nature of storytelling, the novel gracefully reveals what a life feels like in retrospect.
“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.”
This is the kind of book you pick up if want nothing more than to become intoxicated by its warmth and beautifully measured prose. Sign up before the 7th August to receive it as your first selection or purchase as a one-off delivery.
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