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Loading... Run (edition 2007)by Ann Patchett
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. CD-Two boys adopted at early age ?find? their mother as a result of the mother saving one of the boys from being hit by a car; but being hit herself. Another Ann Patchett book that manages, through wonderful writing, to put you in the book, not just in your chair reading the book. Many memorable scenes and passages, from the earliest pages (Doyle was tired. His grief was so fresh he hadn't begun to see the worst of it yet. He was still expecting his wife to come down the stairs and ask him if he felt like splitting an orange.) to the coming-to-the-end pages (With those few words, so true and therefore easily given, she all but fell down next to him on the couch in a swoon of happiness.) I give it 4 stars instead of 5 only because it is a cold and snowy book, and also, I got to feeling like we'd NEVER get out of the hospital. The almost melodious writing style of Ann Patchett is, of course, this book's best feature. And, as I am coming to understand is typical Patchett, the story before the story truly brought me in: a stolen Virgin Mary statue, a question of what it means to be family, rife with sibling rivalry, single parenting and trans-racial adoption. That was a story that was full of potential. And I really liked huge chunks of Run, but most of it felt just like that -- palpable potential resting underneath: the woman who claimed to be the birth mother, and was she or was she just a groupie and the creepy, loving way she stalked her biologic sons. The saintly, dying Catholic priest uncle, and the did he or didn't he actually have the power to heal the sick. The forgotten mayor of Boston, fading into obscurity, trying to live by proxy through his sons. The prodigal son, returned home, a murderer and a thief, but possibly a modern Robin Hood, with a heart of gold and a knack for saving children. The problem is that by shifting around between all of these stories, none of them were really ever given an opportunity to come into their own. The ending came too quickly and, as I'm also beginning to realize is typical Patchett, with a completely unnecessary time jump that left way too much unexplored. I would read the heck out of a story about an ichthyologist turned doctor turned ichthyologist (goodness knows I'm one quarter-life crisis away from writing an autobiography about the topic) and Patchett played with a lot of interesting concepts about why people go into medicine in specific, and careers as a chance of penance in general, but it A) had nothing to do with the first 300 pages and B) she didn't exactly do the topic justice in the 10 pages she had to deal with it. It added little to the book. I'm giving Ann Patchett's fiction one more chance before I resign myself to the idea that it was truly Lucy Grealy who made Truth & Beauty come alive. no reviews | add a review
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HTML: "Engaging, surprising, provocative and moving...a thoroughly intelligent book, an intimate domestic drama that nonetheless deals with big issues touching us all: religion, race, class, politics and, above all else, family." â?? Washington Post From New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett comes an engrossing story of one family on one fateful night in Boston where secrets are unlocked and new bonds are formed. Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving possessive and ambitions father. As the former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see is sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his childrenâ??all his childrenâ??safe. Set over a period of twenty-four hours, Run takes us from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard to a home for retired Catholic Priests in downtown Boston. It shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from each other, and how family can include people you've never even met. As an in her bestselling novel, Bel Canto, Ann Patchett illustrates the humanity that connects disparate lives, weaving several stories into one surprising and endlessly moving narrative. Suspenseful and stunningly executed, Run is ultimately a novel about secrets, duty, responsibility, and the lengths we will go to protect our child No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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