The weather in Las Vegas has been beautiful of late. The day of our meeting a light breeze stirred the air, which made it cooler but warm enough to make basking in the sun seem a worthy pastime rather than a route to skin cancer. Such a dichotomy, the beautiful and ugly, residing together, dependent on our experiences and perspectives. In Tom Lake, Ann Patchett, tells a story through the perspective of a single narrator, a mother revealing memories of her own youth to her adult daughters while gaining and giving new insight into the present.
I started the meeting by showcasing a little about our author, Ann Patchett, and the setting of Tom Lake in and around Traverse City in Northern Michigan – primarily to acknowledge the lack of diversity.[I][ii] This seemed particularly important after last month’s book, Yellowface, highlighted the lack of diversity in the publishing industry. I also mentioned the connection that our September book was set just across Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, also during the Pandemic, and that book’s author also owns a book store. Although diversity was not mentioned in an interview between the author Ann Patchett and The Glen Arbor Sun, I couldn’t help but feel that the author wanted to address it when she answered a question about how hard it is to write literature of hope when “news headlines are dire and bleak? . . . I write books about the sort of people I actually know. There’s nothing wrong with that.”[iii] Interesting fact from the interview: Tom Lake was written entirely on a treadmill desk.
Our first responder listened to the audiobook narrated by Merryl Streep when the book first came out. She still loved the book after reading a print version to discuss with us. She particularly appreciated the dialog between mother and daughters. Another member disagreed, because the girls all blended together for him. Yet another one of us really liked the interactions between the mom and the daughters, finding each quite distinct. She thought it was fun – to think of the girls coming home to help the family. It reminded her of her own extended family. And another of us loved the competition between the brothers. He comes from a family of many brothers and identified with Duke and Sebastian, the love they shared and how supportive they were of each other. One member said she would really like to meet Joe (the father), so easy going. Another agreed that he wanted more of Joe’s story. We wanted more of Duke’s story, too.
I am organizing our comments by ideas here. They actually came interspersed, connected, the way thoughts are, but I hope the import is not lost in translation. One of us commented that the story was slow, that there was no big climax. This was a comment, not a criticism. Another agreed that the novel was slow, but . . . nice. He said it in a way that tells a story itself. He felt that the writing makes the difference. As an example, he mentioned that he really liked our last book, Yellowface, but did not like Crow Mary. All because of the writing style.
One of us said that “we are city folk.” Lara and her family were often working picking cherries as Lara reminisced. The daughter training to be a vet was asked to kill a neighbor’s kittens, something that we’ve heard about on family farms. What about sterilization? One of us remembered his uncle neutering pigs and the pigs’ high-pitched squeals. Celebrations in his childhood included cooked pigs displayed whole, a farm to table reality many of us don’t think about any more. Another mentioned that we are so far away, 100 – 200 years, from what we had to do just to get through to next week. We wondered why Joe and Lara would decide to give up careers for hard work and what was described as a struggling, unsuccessful farm. Someone reminded us that the work is hard but the pace is slow, earthy, exemplified by their lying on the ground and watching films displayed on a sheet outdoors.
And speaking of screens, and films, one of us liked the character development. It was cinematic. Just picture the scene in Lara’s room when the Hollywood hunk meets the starlet, the “Ingenue.” This member usually listens to audiobooks, which often put him to sleep, but this time he read it and found it wonderful to get lost in the reading.
Why did the author include the reference to abortion and the visit to the rehabilitation facility? Was this an afterthought? Just to make a point? One of us was incredibly bothered by the lack of emotion in the telling of this momentous event and decision. Which brought up mental illness and the life of Peter Duke. Is that why he didn’t want to procreate? Did he commit suicide? What did the Pandemic do to people like Peter Duke who thrived with an audience? One member recalled how he worked two jobs and so often looked forward to just sitting and reading. Then society shut down. Be careful what you wish for.
Only one formal book club question came up: “What are the implications of Lara’s ‘simple truth about life: you will forget much of it?’” We all agreed with the “simple truth about life.” But implication? We laughed when someone said, “Don’t take yourself too seriously.” The hour flew by and we were done discussing. I have missed some asides about Summer Stock Theater and Hemmingway writing not from imagination but rather experience. And more. We didn’t discuss much about the parallel with Our Town, but it was there. Perhaps the simple truth is that we will forget much of it. Do you remember which statements you made if you were here? Maybe you didn’t make the statement, but you could have. Or you disagreed and the discussion moved in a different direction.
We appreciated learning about cherries – tart and sweet. Just think of the shaking of the trees. Tart cherries not needing to be beautiful. One of us picked up a food box just this week and it included a two-pound box of tart cherries. Oh, what a coincidence. Do we see it because of the book or is it more meaningful? It wasn’t until the meeting that I realized how I felt about Tom Lake. I didn’t like the first half of the book; I was focusing on details. By the end, the story had become a tapestry. I could finally see the completed piece, with the details, important and necessary, creating a new whole and a work in progress.
- Words:
- Verisimilitude (pg. 196)
- Cormorant (pg. 148)
- Other Works Discussed:
- All About Eve (1950) film starring Bette Davis and Anne Baxter with a small role by Marilyn The Cherry Orchard (1904) by Anton Chekhov Monroe
- The Feud (2017) Season 1 television series starring Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon as Joan Crawford and Bette Davis
- Fools for Love (1983) by Sam Shepard
- Our Town (1938) Play by Thornton Wilder
- Our Town (1940) Film adaptation
[i] Census.gov – population estimates for Traverse City, MI, in 2023. Ninety two percent of its population registered as White and 1.4 percent Black or African American.
[ii] Data USA, based on the Census Bureau ACS 5-year Estimate. The population of Detroit, 250 miles South, is 77.4 percent Black or African American. https://datausa.io/profile/geo/detroit-mi/#:~:text=Population%20%26%20Diversity&text=In%202022%2C%20there%20were%207.68,third%20most%20common%20ethnic%20groups.
[iii] Full quote: “There is so much goodness. When I turn away from headlines and talk to my neighbors, talk to the people who come to the bookstore and work in the bookstore, talk to my family and friends, pretty much all I see is kindness. There are plenty of brilliant books that represent the current state of hopelessness and despair. I write books about the sort of people I actually know.” https://glenarborsun.com/novelist-ann-patchett-visits-nws-new-novel-set-in-northern-michigan/#:~:text=Novelist%20Ann%20Patchett%20visits%20NWS—new%20novel%20set%20in%20Northern%20Michigan,-Upcoming%20Event&text=Just%20about%20every%20big%2Dname,cherry%20farm%20in%20Traverse%20City.
WhitneyBookBistro 