Tom Lake

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK - READ BY MERYL STREEP "Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature."--The Guardian In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America's finest writers. 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 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. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.

About the Author :
Ann Patchett is the author of novels, most recently the #1 New York Times bestselling Tom Lake, works of nonfiction, and children's books. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the PEN/Faulkner, the Women's Prize for Fiction in the UK, and the Book Sense Book of the Year. Her novel The Dutch House was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages, and Time magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. President Biden awarded her the National Humanities Medal in recognition of her contributions to American culture. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is the owner of Parnassus Books. Meryl Streep has been nominated for an Academy Award(R) thirteen times, winning twice. Her numerous film credits include The Deer Hunter, Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie's Choice, Out of Africa, The Bridges of Madison County, Adaptation, and The Hours.

Review :
"Tom Lake is about romantic love, marital love, and maternal love but also the love of animals, the love of stories, love of the land and trees and the tiny, red, cordiform object that is a cherry." -- "Washington Post" "A must-listen...Streep narrates with breathtaking sensitivity...Instead of character voices, she delivers realism, shifting rhythm and tone to reveal personalities...Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award." -- "AudioFile" "A swoony, luminous reminder about the endurance of love and happiness in a broken world." -- "Oprah Daily" "A tender, absorbing tale about becoming who we are." -- "People" "Meryl Streep...is ideal for narrating Tom Lake...Streep delivers with her signature whimsy, her cadence lilting from wide-eyed innocence to winking wisdom." -- " New York Times Book Review" "Patchett expertly handles her layered plot, embedding one charming revelation and one brutal betrayal into a dual narrative that deftly maintains readers' interest." -- "Kirkus Reviews (starred review)" "Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature." -- "The Guardian (London)"