Book Review: Tom Lake

The first page of a novel is like the first scene of a movie. The opening shot. Setting the scene. The audience awaits, filled with anticipation. Filled with questions.

Where are we, and when? Whom will we meet? How did these people get here, to this opening moment? Where have they been, and where will they go?

But one question runs beneath it all, like deep waters in the caverns of our consciousness.

Why should we care?

The great novels and films manage to provide a startling, satisfying answer to that question.

Tom Lake, Ann Patchett’s 2023 novel, delivers and delivers. The story centers on Lara Kennison, the wife of a Michigan cherry orchard farmer with three daughters in their early twenties, all harboring at home during the still-familiar 2020 pandemic. The life of a farmer is one Lara has chosen, as has her oldest daughter Emily, who plans to take over the cherry farm someday. But plans have been put on hold for the younger two, an aspiring veterinarian and actress. As they pick cherries and sit around the dinner table, the girls slowly unearth the real story of their mother’s summer romance at age 24 with Peter Duke long before he became an Oscar-winning movie star. For one summer they shared a stage performing Oscar Wilde’s “Our Town” at Tom Lake, Michigan.

“Duke” was an unknown, on the brink of catapulting himself into worldwide fame. Lara had already made one movie in Los Angeles. And it would be her last.

As the story unfolded, I was captivated by Lara’s journey, from her accidental audition for the role of Emily in her high school’s production of “Our Town” to Hollywood, Michigan, and New York. I was struck by the reminder that one minor incident, one trivial encounter, one small decision to do this instead of that, can change the entire trajectory of one’s life. That haunting question, “What if…?” that can wring from the heart everything from gratitude to regret.

Patchett’s tale is riveting from the opening sentence. I listened to it on Audible, narrated by none other than Meryl Streep, her special propensity for whimsy a perfect embodiment of Lara. The story weaves seamlessly between Lara’s present and past. We tremble through the auditions, our hearts flutter with the blush of first love, our cheeks burn with the anger and pain of rejection and heartache. And through it all, we wonder why in the world someone would choose simplicity over celebrity, a starry sky over a starry sidewalk…

After the last page, the scene fades to black. Has a movie ever left you spellbound, compelled you to stillness, knowing that movement and sound will break the spell and wanting for just a moment to stay suspended in that world?

When Meryl’s voice faded, I drove the last twenty miles to my destination in absolute silence, allowing the people of Tom Lake to settle into my mind, my heart. Sweet and savory, like a cherry just plucked as the sun melts over a northern Michigan horizon.