Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
Tom Lake unfolds during the summer of 2020 as Lara Nelson and her three adult daughters work together on the family’s cherry orchard in Michigan. With the pandemic keeping the girls at home, they urge Lara to revisit the story of her brief romance with actor Peter Duke during her early years as an aspiring performer. As she recounts her past, the novel moves between the present-day rhythms of harvest and the memories of her time in community theatre, her unexpected leap into Hollywood, and the transformative summer she spent at the ‘Tom Lake’ theatre company, where her intense but short-lived relationship with Duke first blossomed.
Patchett uses this interwoven narrative to explore how youthful ambition, heartbreak and chance encounters shape a life. Lara’s reflections reveal how her early dreams gave way to a quieter, more grounded existence on the orchard with her husband Joe, a life defined by steadiness rather than spectacle. The contrast between the daughters’ romanticised curiosity about their mother’s past and the more complicated truths Lara reveals gives the novel its emotional richness. Patchett’s careful character work highlights the tenderness, tensions, and unspoken bonds within the family as they make sense of both past and present.
Tom Lake becomes a gentle meditation on memory, choice, and the unexpected routes to contentment. Its quiet power lies in showing how an ordinary life can hold a depth of meaning that glamorous moments never fully capture.
