I've greatly enjoyed some of Ann Patchett's previous books such as “State of Wonder” and “The Dutch House”. She's won awards and maintains a lovely social media presence promoting books she's enjoyed reading through her Nashville bookstore Pernassus Books. Her latest novel “Tom Lake” has come with critical acclaim and the audiobook has the distinction of being read by Meryl Streep. However, my anticipation for the book was dampened when some readers told me how bland and cozy they found this novel. But I plunged into reading it and was pleasantly surprised to find myself falling for it. It's a story of quiet reflection, the pleasures of family life and how love develops different meanings as we mature.

I think part of the reason why this novel resonated so much with me is timing; it's the right book for me to read now. The main character and narrator is Lara who lives with her husband Joe on a Michigan cherry farm that's been in his family for generations. As the recent pandemic spreads across America their three daughters who are all in their 20s come to shelter with them and assist in the big job of bringing in the cherry harvest. While living together in isolation the daughters demand to know Lara's story about dating an actor named Peter Duke when she was younger. He wasn't famous at the time but he went on to become a big celebrity.

While in this state of lockdown limbo, Lara recounts her experiences in the 1980s becoming a promising young actress herself as well as her heated romance with Duke. They meet while performing in a Summer stock production of 'Our Town' at a location called Tom Lake. The question of why she didn't continue to pursue acting or her relationship with this rising star isn't simple wistful thinking about the road not taken. It's a confrontation with the past where revisiting it from a more mature point of view leads to realisations about what was really at stake and Lara's difficult process of growing into herself. Relating the story to her daughters and husband also requires selecting what to tell and what to leave out – not so much to conceal the truth but to preserve a tender part of her life.

I've seen criticism of this novel from readers bored by a lack of conflict and dramatic plot which is understandable and fair because it's not a showy book. There are certainly twists and revelations and part of the pleasure of this is when Lara realises the truth about something she didn't see at the time. Sometimes we can think back on the past or receive new information and suddenly there's clarity where there was once complete confusion. However, I also think there's a lot on the line for Lara even though she's genuinely content. She dearly loves her family, dog and life on the farm. So it's easy to think of this novel as just cozy fiction. But raking over the past forces her to consider how her story has been shaped by forces beyond her control as well as crucial decisions she's made. There's the very real risk of getting lost in longing.

Part of the pleasure I found in this novel is that it's so much about acting. I used to love acting and there's a lot of great scenes portraying the chaos and camaraderie of putting on a production. Also Patchett shows how the process of performing a character isn't just the portrayal of a role. It reveals different aspects of a person's personality. It can be like a stepping stone towards living more authentically and it's a process of becoming. Yes, it's a profession but it's also a more flamboyant example of how we all adopt personas to meet challenges and new developments in life. By inhabiting the role of Emily Webb in 'Our Town' that character becomes like a companion to Lara and someone she can play off from in the process of discovering what she truly wants. This novel is also a homage to 'Our Town' and if you know the play there will undoubtably be a lot of pleasure in the way Patchett incorporates it into the story. Personally, I've never read it or seen a production of Wilder's play though I'm aware of its plot and its place as a canonical piece of American theatre. So I don't think it's necessary to know the play to appreciate this book.

The main thing I loved about this novel is how it shows the way we shape the stories of our lives. And it doesn't resort to scandals and high drama to do that. In a way it feels more daring to portray contentment and the good fortune of achieving what one really desires rather than presenting anguish in one's lot in life. Ann Patchett is a very famous author and this book is very successful so it doesn't need defending from me. I can understand why it won't entertain or resonate with every reader, but I found it a very moving experience.

There are some novels where I instantly feel connected to the narrator as if he were an old friend. Something about the way Ann Patchett presents her central character of Danny Conroy in her new novel “The Dutch House” hooked me to his consciousness. Maybe it's the tone of his wide-eyed innocence and ignorance as he looks back at his childhood, family life and the home he was cast out of. It's a sensibility I can relate to now that I'm in my early 40s and think back to the mysteries of my early life wondering why certain decisions were made. Danny and his sister Maeve grow up in a grand house with a prosperous father, but their mother abandoned them in their childhood. When their father marries a new woman named Andrea who brings her own two daughters into the house, the Conroy children feel themselves growing even more estranged from their aloof father. In their teenage years they are unceremoniously ousted from their family home and must fend for themselves. Danny recounts this story and the haunting way he and his sister often linger outside the house they've been cast out of ruminating about the past and the truth about their family. In a way, every adult must feel this way reflecting on what Joyce Carol Oates calls “the lost landscape” of childhood. Patchett also poses a number of tantalizing mysteries about this particular family which kept me gripped and I admire the subtle way she raises lingering questions to do with the meaning of family, belonging and home.

The Dutch House of the title was purchased by Danny's father very cheaply in an auction after the family who built and inhabited it fell on hard times and eventually died out. He moves his whole family into this place which still contains all the furnishings and possessions of the previous owners. I like how on top of Danny's wonder about his own family circumstances there's the added mystery of the family that came before them. All their dramas and tribulations seem seared into the structure of the house so that we only see hints of it. This too feels very relatable in the way that we move into a new residence without knowing the story of those who lived their before but we have this odd intimacy with the people who proceeded us because we're inhabiting the space they lived their lives in before. But in Patchett's novel this has a kind of gothic feel as portraits of the previous family adorn the walls staring the Conroy family in the face and co-existing with them. It also has a bigger meaning when thinking about issues to do with capitalism, ownership and how the people who come to possess land and houses aren't always the people who are “justified” in inhabiting them. After all, aren't auctions and “bargain” prices on houses just legal ways of taking advantage of other people's misfortunes and unfortunate circumstances?

Patchett also perfectly frames a feeling of uncertainty and chaos in Danny's life. He grew up accustomed to a certain lifestyle and a belief in what he would become. But because things take an unexpected turn he's suddenly rudderless and doesn't know what direction he'll take: “There are a few times in life when you leap up and the past that you’d been standing on falls away behind you, and the future you mean to land on is not yet in place, and for a moment you’re suspended, knowing nothing and no one, not even yourself.” It's so powerful how Patchett captures this feeling of being suspended in nothingness and being tormented by a terrible unknowningness.

There's also a terrifying sense in the novel that no matter how bonded we feel to our families they can turn out to be strangers. Since their mother left them early on and their father is so emotionally distant, there's an absence of the love which is supposed to make Danny and Maeve feel secure. They're profoundly disconnected from their parents. So much so that Danny wonders if they're a family at all: “It sounded so nostalgic when he said it, the three of us, as if we had once been a unit instead of just a circumstance.” Even though the brother and sister find trust and rely on their relationship to each other, there's a sombre and haunting sense of loss that their parents never gave them this security. Danny also realises that the bitterness they feel about this becomes an addiction: “We had made a fetish out of our misfortune, fallen in love with it.” So part of their periodic vigilant sessions sitting in a car watching the house they grew up in is clinging to that sense of injustice while silently accusing their parents of abandoning them since their parents aren't there to emotionally stand trial.

There's a pleasure to the style of Patchett's story which has a fable-like feel and is in some ways a kind of modern Cinderella tale. But it also feels modern and relevant in how it reflects on deeper issues to do with our changing society by detailing how families have been made and disintegrated amidst larger economic fluctuations. The novel also creates a new kind of storytelling for which there isn't a precedent in how their mother leaves them for so long because “There is no story of the prodigal mother.” So, unlike “The Odyssey” which is driven more by a roaming father's ego and lust for conquest, their mother Elna's story is driven more by a compulsion to nurture a broken world rather than the children she's given birth to. I admire how these deeper meanings build throughout a novel which (on its surface) is quite a simple story with little plot, but after spending an extensive amount of time in Danny's consciousness I deeply felt their resonance. It proves how Patchett is an incredibly skilled and accomplished novelist.