Tom Lake

I finished listening to Tom Lake by Ann Patchett this afternoon. LONG book, 11 and a half hours. I am not sure yet what I think about this book. It was at the same time too long and also just right, too slow and also calming, boring and also interesting. It is the lovely–that’s it, it was lovely–story of this woman and her husband, who live on a farm in Michigan, and they have three daughters who come back home because of the pandemic. The story takes place during the summer, when cherries have to be picked, and so while they pick cherries, they talk about this woman’s first loves, her initial career as an actress, her family, her friends, her pains, her life choices, her first breakup, how she met her husband, etc.

There’s not much suspens, maybe a surprise or two–I was particularly mad at myself because I didn’t see the whole husband thing coming–and there’s no violence, no stress, no rush, no… nothing. It’s just this nice, lovely story about a young woman’s life. It’s not always easy and happy, of course, but she tells it with humour and the perspective that in the end, everything happens for a good reason. It’s the story of one positive side of the pandemic and how it brought some families closer and allowed for conversations to take place that could never have taken place « in the real world. » Maybe it was too positive or optimistic or happy, at a time when so many things were going horribly wrong in the world–she just mentions in passing the seasonal workers who couldn’t work with them that summer, for example. I don’t know, maybe. It didn’t really bother me, because the point of the story was this woman’s romance with a soon-to-be famous actor, not the pandemic, after all.

My favourite parts where when one of the daughters, the one who is studying to be a vet, tells about the work she does for the neighbours during that summer. Pretty funny.

It’s beautifully narrated by Meryl Streep, and it’s another reason why this book is lovely. Charming. Nice. Perfect if you’ve just read a book about war or murders or someone going to Switzerland for assisted suicide reasons or some other horrible events. It’s a reflection on life and youth and fame and love and family and the things that really matter, in the end.