Tom Lake
by Ann Patchett
2023
One of my library coworkers recommended Tom Lake to me. (In fact, she liked it so much, she gave away a copy at last year's staff book exchange!) I often read books about artists at the start of their careers, or young women coming-of-age, but the framing of Ann Patchett's version is new to me. The present-day of Tom Lake is the summer of 2020, when three adult daughters in their mid-20s return home to the family cherry farm to help with the harvest, and their mother, the book's narrator, a woman in her mid-50s, tells her girls about how she used to be an actress, and dated a man who later became a famous movie star.
The text of the book is how Lara tells this story to herself, both the flashbacks to her own early-20s when she thought she was at the beginning of one sort of life, and the present-day interludes, when she is in the middle of a very different way of living, when she thinks about the summer harvest and describes how her girls are reacting to the tale. We hear the story as she knows it, but we're also periodically informed that she has chosen not to tell her daughters something. For example, she leaves out all the sex in the version they hear (but not the one we read), and at the end, she recalls a final meeting between herself and the star that only she and we get to know about.
In the summer of 2020, Lara and her husband own a cherry farm in Michigan. Most of the seasonal workers aren't there this year because of the pandemic, and the girls are home instead of at school for the same reason. The story is partly just to pass the time, and partly to satisfy the girls' curiosity about an early chapter of their mother's life that they've long been vaguely aware of but never known the details of. The eldest daughter is the only one with a green thumb. She's been dating the neighbor boy since they were kids, she'll take over the farm when her parents retire. As a teen, she was convinced that the movie star, Peter Duke, was her real father. The middle girl is in veterinary school, and the youngest wants to be an actress - she's at least as interested in her mom's early career as in her famous fling. Throughout most of the book, I wanted to applaud Lara's husband for being so secure in their marriage and never seeming threatened or jealous of his wife's old flame, though by the end I thought, since he knows how this story goes, of course he doesn't feel insecure!
Lara got into acting as a high school senior, in the play Our Town. Until then she expected to take over her grandmother's sewing store. She got discovered by a talent scout who was there to see his own niece, got an audition for a movie, got the part, moved to LA. The movie was filmed but got delayed coming out. Lara did a couple seasons of a tv show, and tried out for Our Town on Broadway. She didn't get it, but was offered a last-minute replacement spot in a prestigious summer theater troupe, Tom Lake up in Michigan.
At Tom Lake, Lara meets Duke and they're instantly smitten with each other. Duke is affable and charismatic, but also troubled. (In the present day, the girls tell their mom it's not okay to call someone 'crazy.') He has boundless, sometimes manic energy, he obsesses over his roles, he drinks far too much. Soon Lara is also friends with Duke's brother Sebastian, and with her own understudy, Pallas. The summer seems magical and endless. I remember times in my own life that were like that. That enchanted feeling that accompanies falling in love contributes to the timeless quality, I think.
But we know, we've known from the start, that it falls apart. Lara doesn't stay with Duke, doesn't keep acting. When the end comes, it's sad, and feels inevitable. Eventually Lara marries a farmer and happily raises three daughters with him.
In the present day, they pick cherries, discuss the story, talk about their fears for the future, how climate change will affect the farm, whether or not to have children of their own, they worry how the enforced pause of the pandemic will affect their own career trajectories, especially the youngest girl, who's aching to get started.
One recurring theme of the book is the loss of that youthful sense of invulnerability and special destiny. Everything goes right for Lara until it doesn't, until it briefly all goes wrong. Even before that, she realizes the limits of her range as an actress, and struggles to perform something new. Pallas is at least as good as Lara is, and she can sing and dance too. Sebastian is an incredible tennis player, but he's not quite good enough to go pro. There's always someone better, and for the most competitive jobs, the line ahead of you might simply be too long.
But another theme is second chances, and the way earlier events that may not have seemed important at the time can become the building blocks for a new life after the old one falls apart. Lara met her eventual husband at Tom Lake, although they didn't fall in love until meeting again by chance, years later. After she stops acting, Lara starts sewing again. (This is more or less how I became a librarian after my first-choice career didn't work out.)
There are some books that probably aren't good picks for high school reading, not because they're too hard, but because they're about events and emotions that happen later in life, that teenagers can't understand because they're not ready to yet. At the time in your life when you feel invincible and like you'll change the world and be famous and beloved when you grow up, the last thing you want to read is a book that tells you 'no you won't', and that needs you to believe it in order to understand. Lara's daughters, in the midst of their own quarter-life crises, are perfectly positions to appreciate their mom's.
I enjoyed this one, especially the way it's told. Patchett's plot and characters feel very natural and realistic. It's easy to believe this could've really happened to someone, and that she would've felt this way about it afterward.
In the summer of 2020, Lara and her husband own a cherry farm in Michigan. Most of the seasonal workers aren't there this year because of the pandemic, and the girls are home instead of at school for the same reason. The story is partly just to pass the time, and partly to satisfy the girls' curiosity about an early chapter of their mother's life that they've long been vaguely aware of but never known the details of. The eldest daughter is the only one with a green thumb. She's been dating the neighbor boy since they were kids, she'll take over the farm when her parents retire. As a teen, she was convinced that the movie star, Peter Duke, was her real father. The middle girl is in veterinary school, and the youngest wants to be an actress - she's at least as interested in her mom's early career as in her famous fling. Throughout most of the book, I wanted to applaud Lara's husband for being so secure in their marriage and never seeming threatened or jealous of his wife's old flame, though by the end I thought, since he knows how this story goes, of course he doesn't feel insecure!
Lara got into acting as a high school senior, in the play Our Town. Until then she expected to take over her grandmother's sewing store. She got discovered by a talent scout who was there to see his own niece, got an audition for a movie, got the part, moved to LA. The movie was filmed but got delayed coming out. Lara did a couple seasons of a tv show, and tried out for Our Town on Broadway. She didn't get it, but was offered a last-minute replacement spot in a prestigious summer theater troupe, Tom Lake up in Michigan.
At Tom Lake, Lara meets Duke and they're instantly smitten with each other. Duke is affable and charismatic, but also troubled. (In the present day, the girls tell their mom it's not okay to call someone 'crazy.') He has boundless, sometimes manic energy, he obsesses over his roles, he drinks far too much. Soon Lara is also friends with Duke's brother Sebastian, and with her own understudy, Pallas. The summer seems magical and endless. I remember times in my own life that were like that. That enchanted feeling that accompanies falling in love contributes to the timeless quality, I think.
But we know, we've known from the start, that it falls apart. Lara doesn't stay with Duke, doesn't keep acting. When the end comes, it's sad, and feels inevitable. Eventually Lara marries a farmer and happily raises three daughters with him.
In the present day, they pick cherries, discuss the story, talk about their fears for the future, how climate change will affect the farm, whether or not to have children of their own, they worry how the enforced pause of the pandemic will affect their own career trajectories, especially the youngest girl, who's aching to get started.
One recurring theme of the book is the loss of that youthful sense of invulnerability and special destiny. Everything goes right for Lara until it doesn't, until it briefly all goes wrong. Even before that, she realizes the limits of her range as an actress, and struggles to perform something new. Pallas is at least as good as Lara is, and she can sing and dance too. Sebastian is an incredible tennis player, but he's not quite good enough to go pro. There's always someone better, and for the most competitive jobs, the line ahead of you might simply be too long.
But another theme is second chances, and the way earlier events that may not have seemed important at the time can become the building blocks for a new life after the old one falls apart. Lara met her eventual husband at Tom Lake, although they didn't fall in love until meeting again by chance, years later. After she stops acting, Lara starts sewing again. (This is more or less how I became a librarian after my first-choice career didn't work out.)
There are some books that probably aren't good picks for high school reading, not because they're too hard, but because they're about events and emotions that happen later in life, that teenagers can't understand because they're not ready to yet. At the time in your life when you feel invincible and like you'll change the world and be famous and beloved when you grow up, the last thing you want to read is a book that tells you 'no you won't', and that needs you to believe it in order to understand. Lara's daughters, in the midst of their own quarter-life crises, are perfectly positions to appreciate their mom's.
I enjoyed this one, especially the way it's told. Patchett's plot and characters feel very natural and realistic. It's easy to believe this could've really happened to someone, and that she would've felt this way about it afterward.
