Cherries, actors and love.
Slightly slow to start, sitting through auditions for the school play with Lara and Veronica, the play is' Our Town', which I must look up, Lara gets the part of Emily, encouraging her ambitions to be a actress.
Novel moves to the present day in the times of covid. Lara and Jo own a cherry farm in Michigan, covid affects them badly, as they do not have enough help on the farm. Their three daughters live with them, Emily, Maisie and Nell, they are all thrown together and in a reflective moment Lara starts to tell them of her past as an actress. Her past includes an affair with a now deceased actor called Duke. Duke and Lara met on the set of Our Town at a idealistic place called Tom Lake, they were in love until tragedy struck and Lara ripped her achilies tendon, rendering her unable to act or walk for six weeks, she is replaced by her stand in Pallas, not only in the play but in Duke's life. Duke went on to act in films and is was famous.
Lara struggles with life and money, eventually becoming a seamstress taking after her beloved Grandmother. Whilst living at Tom Lake Lara, Duke, Pallas and Sebastien visit the cherry farm run by Joe who also works at Tom Lake, the actors have a memorable day there and want to live there. Lara eventually meets Joe again and they fall in love, she has the happy perfect home and companionship she has always craved.
This story is about life and the love people have for their children, Lara's three all have contrasting personalities, Emily is forthright and demanding, Maisie is questioning and loyal and Nell is everyone's favourite, intuitive and kind, we see them through their struggles, Emily planning her wedding to neighbour Benny, states that she will not have children due to the state of the world, this is a heart-breaking moment for everyone, but so well explained.
Lots of threads to this story, loved it all.
Thank you Ann Patchett and NetGalley.

Tom Lake is a captivating story which unfolds gently and is so beautifully told. It takes place during the months of Covid but that’s not a major focus of the story so don’t let it put you off. While the Nelson family are together working in the family’s cherry orchard, Lara’s daughters press her for details of her relationship with someone who went on to become a hugely successful actor. She was dating him while they both starred in a play many years earlier, before he was famous.

Throughout the book, there are numerous references to the play Our Town with parallels to its plot in the book’s narrative. Our Town is a renowned play in America, widely considered to be one of the greatest American plays ever written, and there have been many adaptations for stage and screen. I wasn’t aware of the play before reading the book, but those who are familiar with its story may get even more out of the book.

One part which particularly resonated with me was when Lara was reflecting that even though the world was a frightening place during covid, she was to a certain extent content as she had all her family around her and she knew they were safe. I remember being similarly grateful that both my girls were at home at that time too for all the difficulties there were.

There is a strong focus on relationships in Tom Lake, from the early passion Lara has with Peter Duke to the quiet but deep and abiding love Lara and Joe have for each other. The sibling relationship between their three daughters is so fascinating to read about. They are so different, with Emily the eldest content to follow in the family tradition and work the cherry orchard, while Maisie the middle daughter has ambitions and is training to be a vet. Nell, the youngest, can’t wait to leave and wants to be an actress as her mother used to be. It was heartwarming to read about the depth of tenderness that Lara felt for each of her girls.

From reading this book, I believe that Ann Patchett has a remarkable talent for delving into the details of ordinary people’s daily lives in a captivating manner that holds the reader’s attention until the very end. Tom Lake is a touching tale of family relationships that explores how past choices impact the present and shape the future.

With thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

I have enjoyed several of Ann Patchett‘s books over the years, and Tom Lake is no exception. Each of her novels is different from any other, but all have been interesting, well written and original. Tom Lake is one of her quieter ones, but this doesn’t mean it is any less assured or compelling - unite the contrary in fact.

During the pandemic, Joe and Lara’s three grown-up daughters come back to the family cherry farm in Michigan to see out lockdown and help bring in the cherry harvest in the absence of the usual seasonal workers. Although farmers now, Joe and Lara both have a past in films and the theatre, including a casually-revealed brief relationship between Lara and the later-to-become-famous actor Peter Duke. The girls, particularly Emily, the eldest, have long obsessed about this fact; for many years Emily was convinced he was her father although the fling predated her birth by many years. Hitherto, Lara has been cagey with the details of her past before meeting Joe and having her daughters, but the story is the perfect way of passing the long, tiring days picking cherries, with daily instalments filling in the details and clarifying timelines.

The story of Lara and Peter Duke is not especially earth-shattering - on one level it is nothing more than a summer romance between a couple of twenty-somethings thrown together in rep theatre. But in the telling, in the construction of the story and Lara’s reflections and in what she leaves out, what we get is a meditation on the way we make sense of our lives. There are the objective things that happen, and the mistakes we make, and then there is the way we turn them into a narrative with a particular spin. Lara’s utter contentment with the life she has chosen is in no doubt, but does a part of that lie in her sense-making of her own life trajectory?

This is an impeccably constructed book that works extremely well as story-telling, but also made me think about my own life and how I have pieced my own life narrative together. It is very deftly done, a masterclass in story construction, and a riveting read. Highly recommended.

So, so good. During lockdown on a cherry farm in Michigan, Laura tells her three daughters about her youthful affair with a now famous actor when she performed in summer stock for a season. Sequestered from the world and without the usual help on the farm because of the pandemic, the conversation spills over days of hard work, sustaining them as they pick the fruit. Ann Patchett is brilliant at families and characterisation and generally wonderful at storytelling, revealing aspects of the narrative at just the right moment. The Chekhovian echos are lightly there (three sisters, the cherry orchard, although the threat to the orchard now is more likely to be climate change). The family in the present is as vivid as the past and the connections between past and present are gently woven in. A very involving and satisfying read.

Ann Patchett excels at characterisation, creating pen and ink people that it hard to believe don't exist. This novel is set on a cherry farm during lockdown, when a family is reunited with the challenge of harvesting the fruit crop without outside help. To pass the time, the mother tells her grown up daughters about a time in her youth when she was an actress, playing a role in the beloved American play 'Our Town' in the summer season at Tom Lake. The narrative alters between reminiscing about those times and the current task at hand, exploring relationships, family dynamics and the nature of success and happiness.

I am a great fan of Ann Patchett. Her novels never disappoint and this one is no exception. Well written, with beautifully drawn characters, 'Tom Lake' takes us through the awkward springtime of Lara's life, the heat of her summer passion, through to the autumn of her later love. Each stage is charted with characteristic honesty and manages to keep the reader engaged to the very end. There is a hard edge to the personal drama which acts as an antidote to any potential tweeness or sentimentalism, but overall the book is ultimately satisfying and uplifting. A brilliant summer read!

I really wanted to love this book, having read the blurb, but I quite liked it. It jumped between past and present, and I never had that 'just one more chapter ' feel about it.

In 2020 all Lara's three girls are home to help harvest the cherries at the family's orchard. Whilst home, they ask their mother to tell them the story of when she was in summer stock in a place called Tom Lake, and how she ended up dating a (now) very famous movie star before she ended up with their father.

I did like the family, and they family dynamics. I just thought the story was a little slow for me.

I enjoyed this one. Having read the Dutch House and loved it I was interested in reading this one. It didn't disappoint and I found it beautifully written. My thanks to netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

Spring 2020 and the middle of the pandemic, Lara’s three daughters find themselves back home on their parent’s farm helping with the cherry harvest. To help pass the time during the long hot days picking, the girls persuade Lara to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor whom they know she loved and starred in a production with during a summer season in Tom Lake when she was 24. And so begins the captivating story of Lara’s life, of Duke and that summer, of the lives of her daughters, of Joe - the love of her life.
I was absolutely captivated by the lyrical storytelling, so mesmerising is Ann Patchett’s writing. She captures perfectly the essence and emotion of each individual moment and I felt like I had been transported to every episode that was recounted. The beauty of the landscape came alive between the pages. Truly sublime story telling full of poignancy and emotion. Words cannot truly do this book justice. I shall be recommending it to all of my friends.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for a review.

I think I have found my favourite read of the year. What a book. I have no notes, this book was a delight. Ann Patchett is in a league of her own. Give her all the awards. Go in knowing nothing, let this story take you by the hand and lose yourself for a few hours.
5 STARS.

This was beautifully written with a confidently woven narrative darting between the past and present seamlessly. The setting of the cherry farm was romantic and evocative. However, all of this was not enough to keep me engaged in a storyline that I had no interest in. I did not care for the acting story that Lara was telling her daughters and grew bored with these bits of the novel. I enjoyed the relationships Lara has within her family but just didn't want to know more when it came to her past reminiscences.
This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

Lara’s three adult daughters are home for the duration of the Covid pandemic and are helping out on the family’s cherry farm in Michigan. Many years earlier, her husband Joe had, in a rare lack of discretion, told the children that their mother once dated a famous actor and one of their childhood idols, Peter Duke. Now, she is ready to tell them the story as they bring in the cherry harvest.

The summer Lara meets Duke, she is an aspiring actor herself, on her way to fame. She has appeared in a big movie and is just waiting for its release. She takes a role for the summer at Tom Lake in rural Michigan, with a theatre company producing plays for tourists in the area.

Lara falls in love with the beauty of Tom Lake, with the theatrical life and her fellow actors – especially Duke. He is attractive, charismatic and driven. Everything is perfect. So how did she get from there to here? And what happened to Duke?

As we are drawn into Lara’s story, we also see the dynamics of the family play out, the different directions her daughters have taken, the solidity of her marriage, and hints at her past struggles. Joe largely remains absent for the storytelling, but he is always there for the family, solid, dryly humorous, quietly determined. (There are also some fascinating details about cherry farming.)

Tom Lake is a bittersweet read. While it will be a popular holiday read, it would also be perfect for times of stress (hopefully not another lockdown). There’s some sadness, but not too much, some great surprises, and overall it’s an uplifting and moving story.

Along the way it interrogates the nature of fame, success and fulfilment. It ask what really matters in life, how we find it – and how we have the sense to know when we have.
*
I received a copy of Tom Lake from the publisher via NetGalley.

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
I am a huge Ann Patchett fan, every since reading Bel Canto she is one of my favourite authors so I was delighted to get an ARC of her new novel Tom Lake.
During Covid Lara's grown up daughters, Emily, Maisy and Nell, return to their home on the Cherry farm and help with the cherry picking. As they work their mother describes her time as a young actress and her relationship with a young Peter Duke, now a very famous actor. The story causes the girls to understand more about Lara and who she was before she became their mother.
The writing is beautiful and I was fully immersed and invested in the story of young love as well as the present day relationships between Lara and her three very different daughters. I highly recommend this book.
Meryl Streep is reading the audio version so if you are an audio fan this could be an amazing listen!
Tom Lake is out 1st August 2023.
Thank you to the author, netgalleyUK and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Beautiful, warm storytelling.

Lara’s three adult daughters are home and working on the family cherry farm during lockdown. They ask their mother to tell the story of the summer she dated Peter Duke, who would go on to be a movie star.

Ann Patchett crafts an immensely satisfying and a quietly page turning novel, masterful in the information she chooses to reveal to the reader and when.

The thing I enjoy most about Patchett’s writing is that it presents a hopeful of humanity, it is nuanced and complicated and never one-dimensional. Emotionally astute.

Pick up this book up if: you’re a lover of stories about ordinary people, and quiet, realistic stories about love.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A beautifully told story of a mother’s before life as an actress to her 3 grown up daughters during the pandemic as they are all isolated together. It’s slow and thoughtful and explores many issues but essentially it’s family life and love and nurture.

This is the first novel I have read by Ann Patchett, so I am not the best informed to say how this compares with her other work, but I enjoyed it very much. It tells the story of Lara recouting to her adult daughters - who are stuck on the family farm during the pandemic- the story of her relationship with a now famous actor. The novel was warm, witty, and charmingly told. It breezed along for me, a light summer read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC

Tom Lake is a beautiful story told by cherry farmer Lara to her three adult daughters about a summer in her youth where she was in love with an actor. It’s a wonderful coming of age storyline with beauty and sunshine, swimming in a lake and walking through cherry orchards. It’s a balm for the soul and I loved it.

Ann Patchett's latest reflects on family, past loves, mother-daughter relationships amidst the constraints of Covid 19 in 2020. 57 year old Lara is delighted to see the return of her grown up daughters on their beautiful Cherry Orchard farm in Northern Michigan, something she cherishes, besides she and her husband, Joe, really need all the help they can get collecting the cherries with so few of their workers able to help. Aspiring actress, Nell, fears the loss of opportunities, Maisie is able to get tutoring online, she is training to be a vet, whilst their eldest daughter, Emily, is intending to take over the farm when Joe retires, with plans to marry Benny, the boy next door.

The girls are restless, bored, and as they toil collecting cherries, they nag Lara to spill the beans about the short time in her earlier life when she had escaped New Hampshire and accidently slipped into a career as a actress. Lara played Emily in Our Town, a role she made her own to great acclaim at Tom Lake. It was here she performed with the volatile and manic Peter Duke, a great actor who went on to become famous, and whose girlfriend she was for that summer. Through the long hot, tiring days Lara tells the story of her life, not all of it, the one she wants to tell, some of which comes as a surprise to them. This includes learning more about their father and their parents, with Nell in particular envious of the acting opportunities that dropped into her mother's lap.

This is beautifully written storytelling that easily held my interest as I became completely immersed in the delights and charms of what it must be like living amongst a cherry orchard, although I appreciate just how much hard work and worry must be involved in running it. However, perhaps because I have read of so many young people experiencing similar summer experiences and relationships, those aspects had less impact on me. Readers who like reading of families and relationships are particularly likely to love this. Patchett is a born storyteller, and I can definitely recommend her latest. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

This is a book of quiet wonder, of brushing with fame and seeing through it. It is a story of contentment, and how to find it after a youthful adventure. I love Ann Patchett's writing and her mastery of quiet situations, her characterisation and eye for engaging details. On the whole this is not about a lot - a film star dies. During the pandemic, the film star's former girlfriend is at home on her family farm with her three adult daughters who all ask her to tell the story of meeting and being with the film star. The story unfolds, there is drama, sex, injuries, betrayals and love, and then the story ends. The book is tied up with Our Town, the play by Thornton Wilder. containing similar themes, and there's also a nod to actor Spalding Gray. Perhaps it was due to me reading it in a week when I was feeling particularly emotional as a parent but some of the passages really struck home for me. Patchett may not convey huge plotlines but the depth of emotion is all there. This is a lovely and wise read. Make time for it.

Beautifully written book which keeps your attention from the start, and there is a change of emphasis in the first chapter, which happens without any confusion, but an element of surprise. It is the history of Lara, who was an actress in her youth, told by flashbacks, and by Lara recounting her acting career and relationships to her three daughters.
Recommended.