Tom Lake is yet another winner by Ann Patchett. It is a beautiful meditation on love and family, particularly during Covid. I could read it again and again. Thanks to NetGalley for e-ARC.

Settings win big for me in this beautiful story about private histories and family stories. MI is my home state and I appreciate the love for the fruit belt!

So good - even better when you have Meryl Streep reading it to you and acting it out ! This one will be for sure a top seller and one of those pandemic novels that will be remembered. Thanks NetGalley for the ARC!

Absolutely no one is better than Ann Patchett. This title is just as poignant and beautiful as her others. I loved the orchard setting. I loved the by-play with sisters and with their mother. It was beautifully written and the perfect book to ring in Autumn.

Ann Patchett is one of my favorite writers and Tom Lake is excellent. Set during the early days of the pandemic, Lara and her husband are at home in their cherry orchard with their three grown children. To pass the time, Lara tells her girls the story of her romance with actor Peter Duke during a summer production of Our Town. The audiobook is narrated by Meryl Streep and is fantastic. This quiet novel reminded me a lot of the Lucy Barton books by Elizabeth Strout.

Well-told and strongly felt story of a woman’s memoir as told to her 3 daughters, of a summer of professional acting and the surprises that led up to it. Very strong sense of place—mostly set in Northern Michigan where the family runs a cherry farm.

4.5⭐️

This was a quietly moving novel about appreciating the little moments as life moves on.

Lara Nelson is quarantined on her family cherry farm in Michigan with her husband Joe and their 3 daughters: Emily, Maisie and Nell. It is 2020 and the Covid lockdown is in effect. Lara’s daughters press her to tell them the story of her past as an actress, and especially long to hear the details of her romance with Peter Duke, her co-star in the summer production of Our Town that was held in Tom Lake, Michigan. I recommend a reading of the play as a companion to this story.

The framing of the novel as a mother recalling her youth to her daughters, as they live and work to keep their farm going during the coronavirus, makes it especially intimate.

Ann Parchett is one of our best American writers.

This was a perfect and satisfying summer read.

Loved this book so much. Thought it was PERFECT. Probably enhanced by watching Our Town earlier this year for the first time. Just so great.

I liked this book as I usually do like Ann Patchett's writing. I feel like I need to read it again to be able to gather all the intricate words Patchett uses. There's lots of characters but I felt like I knew them all because the character development is so well done. Some of the scenes are very repetitive and I felt like the book could have been shorter but other than that this was a great read.

5 cherry stars

This is my third Ann Patchett book, and she is an excellent writer. This book was an amazing read and I enjoyed it immensely. I was drawn right into the story and there were memorable characters. This one made me yearn to visit a cherry orchard and watch some summer stock theater.

Lara is our main character; she’s happily married with three adult daughters. She and her husband own a cherry orchard and the present-day storyline happens during a cherry harvest. As Lara and her daughters pick cherries, her mother fills them in on her glamorous but brief time as an actress. The girls especially want to hear about when their mother met one of the most famous actors, Peter Duke.

Lara’s story takes us through college theater productions, a movie in Hollywood, and summer stock at Tom Lake. The daughters realize that they really didn’t know their mother’s story, but her sharing makes them all closer.

The writing in this one is fantastic and really brings all the family dynamics into play. It’s so realistic, I could definitely picture each of the characters. This one is a gem!

Sweet book. Fans of Ann P will be happy. Simple retelling if a mothers life to her daughters on their cherry farm during Covid.

Pour yourself a large glass of iced tea. Settle in on your favorite couch under your favorite blanket and put on your favorite headphones. Leave your phone and all other distractions in another room. Listen to the audiobook of Tom Lake by Ann Patchett performed by Meryl Streep.

It’s 2020 and Lara’s three adult daughters are home with her at the family cherry orchard because of the pandemic. At their request, she’s telling them about the summer long ago, before they were born, when she was Emily in a production of Our Town at Tom Lake. And what they most want to hear - about how she was dating Duke who later became a famous movie star.

I always love Patchett’s writing and feel like it just draws me in from the start - and even better with Streep’s narration. I don’t think I could love this one more. Thank you Harper and Netgalley for the free book and ebook. I purchased the audiobook.

I always have high hopes for Ann Patchett. And not once have I been let down.

This story is original, beautifully told, hopeful, and heartbreaking all in one. The dual timeline occurs through Lara recanting her days as an actress to her now growing daughters. With a Michigan cherry orchard setting in the present day, Lara transports us to her summer spend in a California summer stock production of Our Town and tells us (along with her daughters) about her life as an almost actress, her young love affair with a one-day legend, and how it all came to an end.

Everyone has a story- even those we think we know the most. And Ann balanced all of the moving parts of looking into the past with such beauty and nuance, as only she can do. Will be thinking on this one for a LONG while to come.

Ann Patchett is so wise. About love, about family, and about pretty much everything life throws our way.

I decided she was my new best friend after I listened to the audiobooks of her two essay collections, "This is the Story of a Happy Marriage" and "These Precious Days," the latter of which is a true masterwork. Her intelligence, empathy for others, and logical way of looking at life drew me to her, and I have such admiration for who she is and all that she’s accomplished.

Now that my fangirling is out of the way, I’ll move on to the book. "Tom Lake," her latest … I loved it. But I didn’t know if I would, seeing as it’s a homage to Thornton Wilder’s "Our Town," a play I’ve neither seen nor read. I should’ve known, though, that all I adore about Patchett would shine through the story, allowing me to not be bothered by my unfamiliarity with the play.

The novel consists of Lara telling her three grown daughters the story of the summer she starred in "Our Town" and dated the now-famous movie star, Peter Duke. Patchett switches between Lara’s story of that summer with what is happening in the present day, where it’s the spring of 2020, COVID has invaded the world, and all three daughters have returned to the family orchard in Northern Michigan to pick cherries.

At first the story felt a bit too mundane. My attention wandered, and I worried that my foray into Patchett’s fiction would be a disappointment. But the beauty of her prose never allowed me to set the novel aside, and before I knew it, I was so engrossed in Lara’s tale that I forgot all else while I read it. It’s just the kind of book it is – it sneaks up on you.

There are surprising revelations throughout the story, along with warm meditations on marriage and children and love in all its shapes and sizes. And also present is a subtle urging to enjoy life in the moment and appreciate what is yours. "Tom Lake" gives so much to the reader, and because of the ease in which Patchett’s words flow across the page, it asks for very little in return.


My sincerest appreciation to Ann Patchett, Harper, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions included herein are my own.

Ann Patchett has constructed a novel that will burst to the top of best-seller lists and with good reason. Her wonderful descriptive writing puts readers alongside characters in alternating time-frames. Lara is 50-something in present day but reflects back on her late teens and early twenties when she grew fame as an actress, especially playing Emily in summer stock Our Town in Michigan. There Lara falls hard for Peter Duke who is destined to become a major Hollywood star. Flash forward to present day and Lara is the mother of three girls who have gathered on the Northern Michigan cherry farm during COVID shutdowns. Many readers will see themselves in Lara, a woman who has to make life-changing decisions and reflects on what could of been. This is a great book tailor-made for book discussion groups.

Taking place in the spring of 2020 while all three of her adult children are home and working on the family's cherry farm, Lara tells her daughters the story of a summer when she was in her 20s and dated a now-famous movie star while performing in a theater production in northern MI. As the story progresses, each of the daughters begins to see both their parent's relationship and their own relationships with their mother in a new light. It is an excellent depiction of how love changes over time that I think will resonate with many readers.
I enjoyed this story so much more than I thought I would! The writing is beautiful, and I believe the story will encourage great discussions. Meryl Streep did a fantastic job narrating the audiobook as well. Ann Patchett does a wonderful job of portraying northern Michigan which I appreciated as a Michigan resident. My book club will be reading this book in a few months and I can't wait to see what they think!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Another great installment in Ann Patchett's works. Centers on many of the same themes we're used to her from her family dramas.

It’s spring of 2020 and Lara’s three grown daughters have all returned home to help out the family cherry farm during the pandemic. To pass the long, tiring days, Lara tells her daughters the story they’ve always wanted to hear - the summer she spent at Tom Lake where she was the star in Our Town and dated a famous actor. As she recalls that pivotal summer, we see the pieces slowly fall into place, connecting that life with the very different one she leads now.

It’s a bit of a cliche to speak of ‘the summer that changed my life’, but many of us do have a defining time we can identify as a turning point in our lives. In addition, the entire world experienced the life-altering time that was the summer of 2020. Ann Patchett brilliantly connects these significant life moments by breaking up Lara’s recounting with the present experiences of her family during the pandemic. She touches on all the timeless delights, challenges and adventures experienced by young women with intimacy and passion.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper for the advance copy of this book.

There’s just something about Ann Patchett. I can fall into her novels in the blink of an eye, and Tom Lake was no exception. I loved her depiction of Lara, a woman utterly content to be in the life she’s living, despite many chances for things to have taken a different path.

This was the first book I've ever read by Ann Patchett and I'm wondering why it took so long! This simple story packs a punch. The story covers two summers in the life of Lara - the summer she starred in Our Town in Tom Lake, MI and the summer she is quarantined on her farm with her husband and three adult daughters. As she regales them with stories of her love affair with a now-famous actor, she discovers even more of what she loves about them and contemplates the choices she made in her life. This beautifully written tale is a page-turner that reminded me how powerful books can be.