Tom Lake
by Ann Patchett
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In the spring of 2020, Lara's three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew. Tom Lake is a show more meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. show lessTags
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Mother, wife, and former actress Lara is enjoying having her three grown daughters home on their family's cherry farm in Michigan, despite the global pandemic that brought them there. To help pass the time and entertain them while they pick cherries (many of the usual seasonal workers are absent), Lara starts to tell the girls about how she dated actor Peter Duke, before he was famous, when they met doing summer stock at Tom Lake, and also how she met their father. Lara, who three times played Emily in Our Town, starts at the beginning and tells almost all of her story, reserving only two or three significant episodes to keep private (and of course she doesn't go into detail about sex). Each daughter is developed: Emily, the oldest, show more plans to marry neighbor Benny and take over the farm. Middle child Maisie is training to be a vet, and helps neighbors with their animals at all hours of the day and night. And Nell wants to be an actress; she's the one who anticipates each turn her mother's story will take, and who understands the implications more quickly than the others.
Quotes
And that is the difference between us: I was very good at being myself, while Nell is very good at being anyone at all. (48)
These girls are so certain about the things they do not know. (59)
"Every thing leads to the next thing." (Emily, 61)
We won't look down at the rows at what seems to be an unbroken field of red dots, a pointillist's dream of an orchard. (66)
"It's terrifying," she says quietly, and now I see the tears in her eyes. "The idea that in order to get to do this thing you really, really want, you might be told you have to do the exact thing you'd never want to do." (Nell, 67)
"We all have a blind spot, right? That bit of incorrect information from childhood that mysteriously never gets updated..." (Duke, 77)
I am making one part of my life into a story for my daughters... (80)
Secrets are at times a necessary tool for peace. (105)
There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. (116)
We clump together in our sorrow. In joy we may wander off in separate directions, but in sorrow we prefer to hold hands. (147)
...a path I know to look for only because I've come this way a thousand times. It's like stepping into a book, one turn and everything changes...(147)
The stories that are familiar will always been our favorites. (157)
"I had two lives," Joe says... "Maybe more than two. I got to do everything I wanted. Who can say that?"
I raise my hand. (173)
A child's ability to misunderstand is limitless, even when she is no longer a child. (174)
"...you can't save them that won't save themselves." (181)
Days are endless and the weeks fly by. (230)
Every sentence she spoke was sitting in my mouth. (233)
These were the things I used to think about, how with a slight shift in circumstances the outcome might have gone another way. (240)
...maybe because we remember the people we hurt so much more clearly than the people who hurt us. (245)
The beauty and the suffering are equally true. Our Town taught me that. I had memorized the lessons before I understood what they meant. (253)
All the things that feel reasonable when you're trying to be an actress feel unbearable once you've stopped. (263)
[Nell] is wrestling with the knowledge that I'd been given everything she'd ever wanted, and that I'd given it away. (266)
I look at my girls, my brilliant young women. I want them to think I was better than I was, and I want to tell them the truth in case the truth will be useful. Those two desires do not neatly coexist, but this is where we are in the story. (240) show less
Quotes
And that is the difference between us: I was very good at being myself, while Nell is very good at being anyone at all. (48)
These girls are so certain about the things they do not know. (59)
"Every thing leads to the next thing." (Emily, 61)
We won't look down at the rows at what seems to be an unbroken field of red dots, a pointillist's dream of an orchard. (66)
"It's terrifying," she says quietly, and now I see the tears in her eyes. "The idea that in order to get to do this thing you really, really want, you might be told you have to do the exact thing you'd never want to do." (Nell, 67)
"We all have a blind spot, right? That bit of incorrect information from childhood that mysteriously never gets updated..." (Duke, 77)
I am making one part of my life into a story for my daughters... (80)
Secrets are at times a necessary tool for peace. (105)
There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. (116)
We clump together in our sorrow. In joy we may wander off in separate directions, but in sorrow we prefer to hold hands. (147)
...a path I know to look for only because I've come this way a thousand times. It's like stepping into a book, one turn and everything changes...(147)
The stories that are familiar will always been our favorites. (157)
"I had two lives," Joe says... "Maybe more than two. I got to do everything I wanted. Who can say that?"
I raise my hand. (173)
A child's ability to misunderstand is limitless, even when she is no longer a child. (174)
"...you can't save them that won't save themselves." (181)
Days are endless and the weeks fly by. (230)
Every sentence she spoke was sitting in my mouth. (233)
These were the things I used to think about, how with a slight shift in circumstances the outcome might have gone another way. (240)
...maybe because we remember the people we hurt so much more clearly than the people who hurt us. (245)
The beauty and the suffering are equally true. Our Town taught me that. I had memorized the lessons before I understood what they meant. (253)
All the things that feel reasonable when you're trying to be an actress feel unbearable once you've stopped. (263)
[Nell] is wrestling with the knowledge that I'd been given everything she'd ever wanted, and that I'd given it away. (266)
I look at my girls, my brilliant young women. I want them to think I was better than I was, and I want to tell them the truth in case the truth will be useful. Those two desires do not neatly coexist, but this is where we are in the story. (240) show less
That Veronica and I were given keys and told to come early on a frozen Saturday in April to open the school for the Our Town auditions was proof of our dull reliability. The play's director, Mr. Martin, was my grandmother's friend and State Farm agent. That's how I was wrangled in, through my grandmother, and Veronica was wrangled because we did pretty much everything together. Citizens of New Hampshire could not get enough of Our Town. We felt about the play the way other Americans felt about the Constitution or the "Star-Spangled Banner." It spoke to us, made us feel special and seen. Mr. Martin predicted a large turnout for the auditions, which explained why he needed the school gym for the day. The community theater production had show more nothing to do with our high school, but seeing as how Mr. Martin was also the principal's insurance agent and very likely his friend, the request was granted. Ours was that kind of town.
And thus begins Ann Patchett's ninth novel and Lara Kenison's tale of how she became an actress which led to her doing summer stock with the famous Peter Duke (before he became famous) as told to her three twenty-something daughters in the summer of 2020. Lara's last name is no longer Kenison, she's no longer an actress, and she now lives on a cherry farm in Michigan. I don't want to reveal too much, because hearing the story with Emily, Maisie, and Nell (along with parts Lara doesn't tell them) is a large part of the story's charm. By the end of the novel, you will know Lara as well as she knows the character of Emily, who she ends up playing in multiple productions. All the characters come to blooming life in both timelines. That long summer of social distancing, when rural families kept their distance to protect the vulnerable, when young adults found themselves back in their parents' homes, comes back in living color (but not painfully so, it's just a backdrop to bring the family together, to have everyone working together on the harvest while they listen to Lara's tale). It's a 300 page examination of the choices Lara has made and the events she simply couldn't avoid, that brought her to where she is at the current moment: surrounded by family in a place she loves. (The more you get her story, the more you see how beautiful and miraculous that is.)
You don't have to know and love [b:Our Town|205476|Our Town|Thornton Wilder|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442891231l/205476._SY75_.jpg|3119231] to understand this novel, but it helps. My dad and I were both in our high school productions of the play, 40 years and over 2,000 miles apart, which gives it a special place in my heart. Ms. Patchett also throws in references to Anton Chekhov's [b:The Cherry Orchard|87346|The Cherry Orchard|Anton Chekhov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546625162l/87346._SY75_.jpg|1616484], which I haven't read and that didn't detract from my reading experience. In every imaginable way, Tom Lake hits all my sweet spots. While I've really liked several of Ann Patchett's previous novels ([b:Bel Canto|5826|Bel Canto|Ann Patchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1352997328l/5826._SY75_.jpg|859342], [b:State of Wonder|9118135|State of Wonder|Ann Patchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1454428541l/9118135._SY75_.jpg|14893776], and [b:Commonwealth|28214365|Commonwealth|Ann Patchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1483278132l/28214365._SY75_.jpg|48242398]), this is the first one I've given five stars. I absolutely adored it. show less
And thus begins Ann Patchett's ninth novel and Lara Kenison's tale of how she became an actress which led to her doing summer stock with the famous Peter Duke (before he became famous) as told to her three twenty-something daughters in the summer of 2020. Lara's last name is no longer Kenison, she's no longer an actress, and she now lives on a cherry farm in Michigan. I don't want to reveal too much, because hearing the story with Emily, Maisie, and Nell (along with parts Lara doesn't tell them) is a large part of the story's charm. By the end of the novel, you will know Lara as well as she knows the character of Emily, who she ends up playing in multiple productions. All the characters come to blooming life in both timelines. That long summer of social distancing, when rural families kept their distance to protect the vulnerable, when young adults found themselves back in their parents' homes, comes back in living color (but not painfully so, it's just a backdrop to bring the family together, to have everyone working together on the harvest while they listen to Lara's tale). It's a 300 page examination of the choices Lara has made and the events she simply couldn't avoid, that brought her to where she is at the current moment: surrounded by family in a place she loves. (The more you get her story, the more you see how beautiful and miraculous that is.)
You don't have to know and love [b:Our Town|205476|Our Town|Thornton Wilder|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442891231l/205476._SY75_.jpg|3119231] to understand this novel, but it helps. My dad and I were both in our high school productions of the play, 40 years and over 2,000 miles apart, which gives it a special place in my heart. Ms. Patchett also throws in references to Anton Chekhov's [b:The Cherry Orchard|87346|The Cherry Orchard|Anton Chekhov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546625162l/87346._SY75_.jpg|1616484], which I haven't read and that didn't detract from my reading experience. In every imaginable way, Tom Lake hits all my sweet spots. While I've really liked several of Ann Patchett's previous novels ([b:Bel Canto|5826|Bel Canto|Ann Patchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1352997328l/5826._SY75_.jpg|859342], [b:State of Wonder|9118135|State of Wonder|Ann Patchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1454428541l/9118135._SY75_.jpg|14893776], and [b:Commonwealth|28214365|Commonwealth|Ann Patchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1483278132l/28214365._SY75_.jpg|48242398]), this is the first one I've given five stars. I absolutely adored it. show less
It's 2020 at the height of COVID and Lara's three daughters are all home on their Michigan cherry farm helping out with the harvest -- the world may be shut down and the usual seasonal workers may be missing but the cherries still must be picked. To pass the time, Lara tells them the story of her time as a young actress, her close relationship with Our Town, and her brief fling with a man who would become a famous movie star on the way to meeting their father.
I thought this was lovely. Patchett has a way of transporting you to a time and a place and letting you live there with the characters. One thing that struck me while reading is that this is the first positive COVID book I've read -- even though the girls are frustrated at being show more back at their childhood home and putting their lives on hold, Lara is thrilled to have her daughters there for what is almost certainly their last summer all home together despite the circumstances. 4.5 stars. show less
I thought this was lovely. Patchett has a way of transporting you to a time and a place and letting you live there with the characters. One thing that struck me while reading is that this is the first positive COVID book I've read -- even though the girls are frustrated at being show more back at their childhood home and putting their lives on hold, Lara is thrilled to have her daughters there for what is almost certainly their last summer all home together despite the circumstances. 4.5 stars. show less
I am a huge fan of Ann Patchett; she is one of the authors I regularly recommend and I often give her books as gifts. Bel Canto is one of the best novels written in my adult lifetime. This is setting the bar very high, but I want what follows to be understood in context. Tom Lake is a bad book. If I were coming to Patchett for the first time, I would end the relationship here. The faults are many: the plot is leaden, the characters alien, the metaphors cumbersome. The setting is as close in time (and as unwelcome) as yesterday's newspapers. Ideas that are deemed 'important' are shoehorned in without regard for context. Perhaps most disturbing is Tom Lake's casual nihilism; it transports us to a world over which the grim reaper presides show more with an unwarranted degree of finality. Give it a miss. show less
The amazing thing is how soft the velvet is covering the iron fist at the novel's heart. A woman spends her entire youth unsure enough about what she wants that the men in her life steer her to their own advantage, and Patchet wraps the experience such gauzy nostalgia that it feels like a sweet story. Even by the end, Lara has not truly reconned with her lack of agency. She is happy for the same reason she is surprised her farmer daughter and son-in-law consider the world too dangerous to consider having a child - because Lara considers her life too charmed to face reality. Maybe she's even right.
I loved Meryl Streep's narration for the audiobook. She was perfect for a story about an actress and mother. I could practically see her in the role.
Lara is sixteen when she helps staff the auditions for a local community production of [Our Town]. Bemused by the range of talent, and an impressive (and cute) boy who will play George, she decides to audition for Emily. And so begins a journey that will last for a decade, taking her to college drama, a role in a movie, and then to the epitome of summer productions at Tom Lake. There she meets Peter Duke, destined to become a famous movie star, but at that time just a wannabe in his twenties. The summer at Tom Lake would change her life.
Tom Lake is structured in flashbacks. Lara is now in show more her fifties, living on a cherry orchard, and happy to have her three grown daughters home during the covid lockdown. They want to know the story of her life as an almost actress, and between life events on the farm, she tells them... almost everything. Some things are for her alone.
I enjoyed this story of mother and daughters, youthful aspiration, and the way life can take you in unexpected directions. I especially enjoyed Meryl Streep's voice as she embodied the character: an actress playing a mother who had been an actress. Nice symmetry. show less
Lara is sixteen when she helps staff the auditions for a local community production of [Our Town]. Bemused by the range of talent, and an impressive (and cute) boy who will play George, she decides to audition for Emily. And so begins a journey that will last for a decade, taking her to college drama, a role in a movie, and then to the epitome of summer productions at Tom Lake. There she meets Peter Duke, destined to become a famous movie star, but at that time just a wannabe in his twenties. The summer at Tom Lake would change her life.
Tom Lake is structured in flashbacks. Lara is now in show more her fifties, living on a cherry orchard, and happy to have her three grown daughters home during the covid lockdown. They want to know the story of her life as an almost actress, and between life events on the farm, she tells them... almost everything. Some things are for her alone.
I enjoyed this story of mother and daughters, youthful aspiration, and the way life can take you in unexpected directions. I especially enjoyed Meryl Streep's voice as she embodied the character: an actress playing a mother who had been an actress. Nice symmetry. show less
Patchett is a must-buy author for me. This quiet "pandemic" novel flips between a cherry orchard during the 2020 lockdown and Lara's past. It reminded me of Lucy by the Sea. A woman shares stories from her youth with her three adult daughters. It's a mix of quiet reflections about what you think you want vs. what actually makes you happy and the realization that every adult has when they discover their parents had lives long before they were born. All of it is told with Patchett's skill for getting to the heart of the matter. I loved seeing Lara's vulnerability as she talked with her daughters and also her observations about the three girls' vast differences.
Sometimes things come together to bring you the perfect book at just the right show more time. I saw Our Town performed at an outdoor Midwest theatre this summer. I reread the play because it was fresh in my mind. I had no idea it played such a huge role in Tom Lake. We also visited New Hampshire this year, which is where the novel begins, and then I visited Michigan, where the rest of the novel takes place. I can't explain how this novel just felt like it was made for me at this moment. I think this story is wonderful no matter when you read it, but it had an unexpected resonance for me because of all those factors.
“It’s not that I’m unaware of the suffering, and soon-to-be-more suffering in the world, it’s that I know the suffering exists beside wet grass and a bright blue sky recently scrubbed by rain. The beauty and the suffering are equally true.”
“There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. 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. Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well, until one morning you’re picking cherries with your three grown daughters and your husband goes by on the Gator and you are positive that this is all you’ve ever wanted in the world.”
“The stories that are familiar will always be our favorites.”
“I want to tell her she will never be hurt, that everything will be fair, and that I will always, always be there to protect her.”
"He lacked the hubris to believe that he should have the lead, that's what made him good." show less
Sometimes things come together to bring you the perfect book at just the right show more time. I saw Our Town performed at an outdoor Midwest theatre this summer. I reread the play because it was fresh in my mind. I had no idea it played such a huge role in Tom Lake. We also visited New Hampshire this year, which is where the novel begins, and then I visited Michigan, where the rest of the novel takes place. I can't explain how this novel just felt like it was made for me at this moment. I think this story is wonderful no matter when you read it, but it had an unexpected resonance for me because of all those factors.
“It’s not that I’m unaware of the suffering, and soon-to-be-more suffering in the world, it’s that I know the suffering exists beside wet grass and a bright blue sky recently scrubbed by rain. The beauty and the suffering are equally true.”
“There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. 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. Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well, until one morning you’re picking cherries with your three grown daughters and your husband goes by on the Gator and you are positive that this is all you’ve ever wanted in the world.”
“The stories that are familiar will always be our favorites.”
“I want to tell her she will never be hurt, that everything will be fair, and that I will always, always be there to protect her.”
"He lacked the hubris to believe that he should have the lead, that's what made him good." show less
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Author Information
31+ Works 55,584 Members
Ann Patchett was born on December 2, 1963. She received the Orange Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2002 for her novel Bel Canto. Her other novels include The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician's Assistant, and State of Wonder. She has also written several nonfiction works including Truth and Beauty: A Friendship, The Getaway show more Car, The Bookshop Strikes Back, and This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Ann's title's Commonweatlth and The Patron Saint of Liars made the New York Time bestseller list. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Awards
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A tot vent (811)
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Tom Lake
- Original publication date
- 2023
- People/Characters
- Lara Kenison Nelson; Emily Nelson; Maisie Nelson; Nell Nelson; Joe Nelson; Peter Duke (show all 12); Sebastian Duke; Pallace Clarke; Benny Holzapfel; Albert Long; Bill Ripley; Nell (maternal grandmother)
- Important places
- New Hampshire, USA; University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, USA; Northern Michigan, USA; Traverse City, Michigan, USA
- Important events
- COVID-19 pandemic
- Dedication
- For Kate DiCamillo
who held the lantern high - First words
- That Veronica and I were given keys and told to come early on a frozen Saturday in April to open the school for the Our Town auditions was proof of our full reliability.
- Quotations
- “Everything leads to the next thing.”
And that is the difference between us: I was very good at being myself, while Nell is very good at being anyone at all.
"It's terrifying," she says quietly, and now I see the tears in her eyes. "The idea that in order to get to do this thing you really, really want, you might be told you have to do the exact thing you'd never want to do."
Secrets are at times a necessary tool for peace.
There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it.
We clump together in our sorrow. In joy we may wander off in our separate directions, but in sorrow we prefer to hold hands.
The stories that are familiar will always be our favorites.
...a path I know to look for only because I've come this way a thousand times. It's like stepping into a book, one turn and everything changes...
A child's ability to misunderstand is limitless, even when she is no longer a child.
Or maybe they are children looking at their parents and so our lives began when they began and everything else they they colored in with fat crayons any way they wanted.
I had the range of a box turtle. I was excellent, as long as no one moved me.
“…you can't save them that won't save themselves.”
No summer girlfriend ever changed the course of a movie star's life.
She stayed with me after the rest of them had faded, maybe because we remember the people we hurt so much more clearly than the people who hurt us.
I look at my girls, my brilliant young women. I want them to think I was better than I was, and I want to tell them the truth in case the truth will be useful. Those two desires do not neatly coexist, but this is where we are... (show all) in the story.
Funnily enough, this turned out to be the thing that saved me: the knowledge that I could get back by myself.
Good marriages are never as interesting as bad affairs.
The past need not be so all encompassing that it renders us incapable of making egg salad.
p253 - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Where would he be in the world except with his brother, here with us?
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