Our Town

Ann Patchett's latest novel Tom Lake (2023) is set on a Michigan cherry farm in 2020 during the COVID pandemic. Lara and Joe's three adult daughters have returned home to support the family farm and live out lockdown in their childhood home. The eldest Emily will inherit the farm and likely marry her sweetheart on the neighbouring farm. Middle child Maisie is a local veterinarian and youngest Nell is studying to be an actor. While they pick cherries in the orchard, the girls ask their mother to tell them about how she once had relationship with Hollywood heartthrob Peter Duke. Lara tells the tale of how she did a summer stock production of Our Town at Tom Lake, a festival town, where she met Duke and had a summer romance.

Told in flashbacks, Lara recounts the story from her early twenties when she was cast to star as Emily in Thornton Wilder's classic play Our Town (1938) and Mae in Sam Shepard's Fool For Love. The summer she spent at Tom Lake was filled with rehearsals, performances and lazy days of swimming and hanging out with her friends - Duke, his brother Sebastian, and Pallace (Lara's understudy). After this summer of passion, Duke went on to become a star and then converted his celebrity into an Oscar winning performance in a serious dramatic role. Lara had a brief moment of fame, starring in one film before retiring in her mid-twenties and retreating to the farm. Her daughters are keen to know how Duke and Lara's paths converged and then separated, and ultimately how Lara ended up on the farm instead of a mansion in Hollywood.  

It helps to have knowledge of Wilder's Our Town when reading Tom Lake. A few chapters in,  I decided to refresh my memory and found my browning 1985 edition of the play. In my high school drama class I did a scene from Our Town, playing Emily Webb opposite a classmate's George. I have no doubt that my Emily was not unlike the many dud Emilys, Lara observed during auditions!  Our Town is essentially a play about life in a small town and the preciousness of the little things in life. I didn't really appreciate the play when I read it as a teenager, but can understand it more now. The folksy tale of life in Grover's Corner is an excellent parallel for Tom Lake. 

I read Patchett's Tom Lake while listening to the audiobook performed by Meryl Streep. She read this book with warmth and embodied Lara perfectly. Interspersed between Lara's memories of one golden summer, is the present on her family's orchard. The novel explores the joys of family, and the slowness that the pandemic brought as people formed protective bubbles. Lara explains the choices she made without regret. Along the way we learn more about her daughters and her husband and life on the farm. Lara revels in the preciousness of each day and the joys of having her children close by.  Tom Lake brings about a coziness, like comfort-food - a cherry pie enjoyed while wrapped in a patchwork quilt by a roaring fire. 

My review of Ann Patchett's State of Wonder (2011) is also on this blog.