“That Veronica and I were given keys and told to come early on a frozen Saturday in April to open the school for the Our Town Auditions was proof of our dull reliability. The play’s director, Mr. Martin, was my grandmother’s friend and State Farm agent. ...Citizens of New Hampshire could not get enough of Our Town. We felt about the play the way other Americans felt about the Constitution or the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
Those are the opening lines to Anne Patchett’s novel Tom Lake. Lara is the narrator and in the opening chapter she explains how she began her short-lived acting career that day by auditioning and getting the part of Emily in the play Our Town. She plays it several times over the years and her convincing acting leads to a part in a movie.
Most of the story, however, takes place in 2020. Lara is married to Joe and has three grown daughters who have all come home to hang out during the pandemic. They live on a cherry orchard farm in Michigan, not far from the summer stock theater on Tom Lake, where Lara played Emily for the last time. Joe was the play director for that production. Lara was dating one of the actors, Peter Duke who went on to be a star. Lara’s daughters ask her to tell the story of that summer with Duke.
The jacket says, “As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and their relationship with their mother, and are forced to reframe their understanding of the world they thought they knew. Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics.”
I experienced this story as an audiobook read by Meryl Streep. Her reading makes it one of the best audiobooks I have ever listened to.
If you’re looking for a story about family dynamics, and a great audiobook, then you must experience Tom Lake by Ann Patchett.
