I might just break the bookbloggisphere with this… but… I didn’t care for Tom Lake by Ann Patchett.
Can I start by saying that I have loved (really loved) her previous books – proof here and here.
But Tom Lake, with its moving between the past and present, as Lara tells her adult children about the love affair she had in her youth with a guy that ultimately becomes a famous actor, was bland.
There’s an obvious problem with the narrative structure from the beginning – Lara’s daughters have always known of the love affair (so much so, that one of them is convinced that the actor in question is actually her father). So the ‘telling’ of the story that the girls have long pestered Lara for, flounders from the outset. I was hoping for a big reveal or a satisfying twist but instead, Lara’s summer romance plays out predictably. Overall, it lacked the fairy tale quality of Patchett’s other stories (the ingredients were there, however, the switching between past and present broke the spell).
Additionally, the period that the story was set in felt off. References to COVID lockdowns firmly placed the ‘past’ that Lara spoke of in the nineties, or the eighties at a stretch. And yet, the ‘past’ read like the fifties, with quaint expectations and manners. Lara, who is supposedly age 24 when the love affair takes place, acts like a teenager. Perhaps this was a deliberate decision to convey her small-town naivety but it failed to convince me.
The best thing I can say about Tom Lake is that it made me want to read the play, Our Town by Thornton Wilder (this is the play that Lara is performing in with the soon-to-be-famous-actor). Perhaps if I was familiar with Our Town, I would have appreciated the parallels between Lara and the play’s main character, Emily.
I also enjoyed the cherry orchard setting and the multiple references to cherry pie.
I so wanted to round-out the reading year with a Patchett-high but alas, this was not the book.
2.5/5
Sshhhh, don’t tell Brona 😆
So many of my reading friends gave it five stars! (And I wondered if we’d read the same book). Importantly, it won’t stop me reading Patchett in the future.
I’m assuming you’ve run for cover after this!
* prepares further defence * 😬
Actually… I’ve read an unenthusiastic review of this somewhere, so you are not alone.
I was never interested in it anyway. What a dumb idea for a plot. It reminds me of that ridiculous book Tomorrow by Graham Swift where a woman spends the entire novel musing over this momentous secret that she’s going to reveal to her children in the morning, and it turns out to be *yawn* that they were IVF babies.
You may enjoy my review. With all due modesty, it’s better than the book: anzlitlovers.com/2017/04/01/tomorrow-2007-by-graham-swift/
I just read your review (and pat myself on the back for doing the sample chapter thing, which often weeds out duds…. although I did read a sample for Tom Lake and it started off well because Patchett’s writing per se is always good. But good writing can be applied to boring things!). I’ve read a couple of Swift’s books and only enjoyed Mothering Sunday.
I’ve read a couple of Patchett’s, Commonwealth and Bel Canto. I’ll read just about any general fiction that the library throws up. I don’t have an opinion about her, but Hist Fic that gets stuff wrong, especially about periods we’ve lived through ourselves or know well, is just plain irritating.
I thought Commonwealth was brilliant. I really loved everything about it. Haven’t read Bel Canto (yet) but have had it on the TBR stack for eaons – keep getting distracted by her latest releases.
I looked Ann up on wiki. She’s eight years older than me, so yeah, we’re about the same in terms of when we were young adults – and nothing about Lara’s (Ann’s!) impressions of her first love affair aligned with my own. Not that I expect that… but I guess we look for points in any story to attach to, so that we can begin to understand the characters. But maybe I”m doing it wrong…?!
You’re not alone in being disappointed. I rarely buy books, but I purchased this when I took my son to college and had a night alone in a hotel. I was looking forward to it for weeks because, like you, I really love Ann Patchett. It started off okay, but quickly floundered for all the reasons you mentioned. 100% to every word of your review.
It’s the pits when we save up a book and look forward to the reading opportunity, only to feel let down!
I did read Our Town after Tom Lake. I also read another Thornton Wilder novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey. I should have found Chechov’s The Cherry Orchard. She used a lot of literary references that I missed when I read Tom Lake first. My daughters often ask me for details about stories about my life before they were born. They’ve heard the stories but like to hear them again.
Did your wider reading add to Tom Lake?
I can be a literary snob on occasion and pride myself on being able to figure out the “twist” in a simple plot line but I do think you should read Our Town (a. because it’s a classic and b. because it will make you see Tom Lake differently.) Tom Lake isn’t about the twist, or about how realistic or accurate her recollections of her first love are. In fact, several times in the book she mentions how you remember what you want the way you want to remember it (regardless of whether or not it was accurate). To me, the story is about first loves and dreams and how sometimes what you never dreamed of: a perfectly pedestrian life, is exactly what you wanted and needed.
I’ve definitely read unenthusiastic reviews of this (can’t remember where unfortunately!) so you’re definitely not alone! I’ve got a few Patchett stacked up in the TBR so I’m guessing I should get to those before this one…
I love Patchett too but this one hasn’t appealed to me at all.
Oh dear, I haven’t read anything by Patchett but I have saved your recipe for cherry pie!
I’ve avoided reading Patchett because my husband said how much he’d disliked her Bel Canto. Now, he wasn’t a very critical person, but if he disliked something, he must have had a very good reason. So hearing that this only got 2.5/5 from you doesn’t surprise me much.
Thank you. I am a Patchett fan, too, and another person who was disappointed in Tom Lake. She displays her wonderful use of language, which was a pleasure, and the cherry farm is a great setting, and who’s not interested in summer theater? But the way the three daughters and the mother all doted on each other so much struck me as unreal to the point of sickening. I’d like to have heard from the oldest, Emily, when she still believed that Duke was her father and was angry with Lara all the time. It’s good to read something uplifting in these dark days, but it has to convince me that it’s real. Well, call me a total grump but I never liked “Our Town,” either. The message was good, but the characters struck me as stereotypes, and I just found it sappy and boring.
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I’m just so relieved that I’m not alone in this. I’ve always loved her work, and I was really looking forward to this one…unfortunately, it makes me kind of want to throw up.
I laughed when I read that it sort of made you want to throw up!