This was a gem of a book! Patchett is so good at weaving a story together. This one brings together two timelines as a mother tells her daughters about a summer when she was young. I love how Patchett’s writing is simple yet evocative as she tells her tale. This didn’t end up being my favorite Patchett book, but if you enjoy character-focus novels, give this one a try.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the digital ARC.

I was very excited to get the advanced copy of this book!
I’ve only read two other books by this author but I enjoyed them immensely.
This book is set mostly in northern Michigan, and I am a lifelong Michigander.. it also brought up names of cities just a couple miles away from me which was very cool.

The story of Lara … who lives on an orchard up north with her husband and three grown daughters .. it’s during the time of the pandemic and all the daughters are home, very busy with cherry picking and helping out since their lives are on pause during this time, as they are working together, they want to hear about their mom’s brief career as an actress in summer stock at Tom Lake..very close to home..and her relationship with a well known male movie star
A story about family and relationships..I really enjoyed!

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins for the ARC!

A Midwestern cherry farm, a beautiful family saga, the memories of a summer at the Tom Lake theatre full of love, loss, and self-discovery… this book contains multitudes and all of them are wonderful. I think what I love most about Ann is her female protagonists who give us a social commentary both full of nostalgia and humor, in a way that is touching and entirely relatable. To say this book was a warm hug is an understatement. I cannot wait for you all to get your hands on this tender tale in August! 🍒

Lara, her daughters and husband are working full out to pick their cherries before they spoil during covid so there’s no extra help. The girls beg for a story they’ve heard many times, the story of their mom when she was an actress, dating Duke who is now a famous star. Told over several days, the novel explores the relationships between Lara and her daughters, and to each other.
As always, beautifully and lyrically written in the infamous Patchett style, Tom Lake is a gentle story you will remember long after you’ve finished.

The Dutch House set the highest of standards, but Ann Patchett has again crafted a beautiful book of family legacy.

Former actress Lara lives on a working orchard farm with her husband and, in the summer of 2020, her three adult daughters. The most immediate problem facing the family is how to harvest the fruit without the help of the large group of migrant workers during the days of the pandemic lockdown. The work is physically exhausting but tedious, so Lara, at the urging of her daughters, tells the story of her summer stock love affair with a future superstar franchise actor (think Bond or Marvel) when she was in her 20s. It's a coming-of-age story told through the lens of distance, forgiveness, and understanding, and it is compelling.

Has any writer ever trusted her audience more than Ann Patchett? Has any writer ever been so trustworthy? "Tom Lake" is a dual timeline story and, although Patchett doesn't explicitly tell you where in time she is with headers, it's always crystal clear. It's a smaller world, a less dramatic opus, than some of her previous works like "Commonwealth" or "State of Wonder," but she is endlessly able to engage the reader even in this quieter, leaner story.

Ann Patchett is kind of a Goldilocks writer--not too dry, not too lyrical. Graceful yet matter-of-fact. Her prose is always accessible, but offers real insight. She drops such subtle foreshadowing clues so that each revelation is both surprising and, somehow, in retrospect, predictable. She makes it all look so easy which is, of course, the most difficult and impressive feat of all.

5 stars. Publication date 8/8/2023. Thanks to NetGalley for graciously providing the ARC. The opinions are my own.

Ann Patchett has a genuine way of creating pure family dynamics. As she takes us through the years of Lara's past, from Lara discovering what she wants out of life, what she doesn't want, and where she ended up, this novel is constructed in a way to only make you love the entirety of it. From beginning to end, this novel is utterly captivating.

Beautifully told story of Lara, who narrates the summer she spent starring as Emily in Our Town and dating a man who later became a movie star. She herself relates the story to her three grown daughters as they all bring in the cherry harvest in their family's cherry orchard as the Covid 19 pandemic isolates them in Northern Michigan without the usual supportive labor they use. Throughout the telling, the reader becomes engrossed in the current and the past stories of their lives, through the superb writing of Ann Patchett.

A coming of age story set during the summer of 2020 on a cherry farm in Michigan, “Tom Lake” digs deep into how a past relationship helps a young woman find the best path in life for her.

Lara’s three girls, all in their twenties, have come home for the summer and while picking sweet cherries on the family farm persuade their mother to tell her story about how she once dated a now very famous actor. The story smoothly intertwines a long ago summer in Lara’s past with the present. This is an amazing character drawn work written from Lara’s first person perspective. It is so gorgeously told, one can see all the individual characters, the cherry orchard, and the old family home.

Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town” is also a large part of the story. In her TikTok account, Ann Patchett suggests reading the play “Our Town” before reading her new book, “Tom Lake.” I haven’t read “Our Town” but an online synopsis of the play helped me understand the story's references..

“Tom Lake” is an example of Ann Patchett at her finest and fully displays the talent of one of the greatest of today’s contemporary writers.

I enjoyed this book. I generally am a fan of Ann Patchett. I thought it was a simple story with great characters. I enjoyed the plot twists as they came because they felt organic.

"Once in a thousand times it's interesting." So says the Stage Manager of marriage in Thornton Wilder's Our Town. Tom Lake is the site of a summer stock production of Our Town, where Lara, Duke, Nelson, and others meet and set the stages for the rest of their lives. Duke becomes a famous actor. Lara marries a cherry farmer and raises three daughters. As she recounts her time as an actress and summer romance with Duke to her enthralled daughters, the joys and heartbreaks of her youth find a balance with the life she has chosen as an adult. Ann Patchett's clear prose and ability to give her characters life makes Tom Lake a beautiful read. "Do any human beings ever realize life when they live it?" asks Emily to the Stage Manager. Probably not, but it helps when we have stories from Ann Patchett to read.

I am quickly falling in love with Ann Patchett. After reading the Dutch House I knew I would have to pick up everything she has written since, and Tom Lake was no disappointment. Patchett is really herself in this one, the deliciously developed characters, the palpable setting... a master of the craft!

I really enjoy Lara's voice, how she recalls her youthful days and how playful and real she is with her daughters. The girls are great as well, each so unique and each holding a different aspiration and a place in the family. I really enjoy the real approach Patchett takes to stories of life, real narratives that people live somehow make her writing more compelling to me. I feel like I could visit Lara on her orchard.

This will be a reread for me, I think it will always have a place on my bookshelf.

P.S.--Reading books set in the COVID-19 Pandemic is still really weird to me.

Thank you to Harper for my advance readers copy through NetGalley.

I'm a huge Ann Patchett fan, as I know many are, and fans won't be disappointed by Tom Lake. Her style of family epic is there, but also braided in are some delightful Hollywood gossip/behind the scenes vibes as well as one of the most artful literary handlings of the COVID pandemic (as a minor background character) that I've seen. I didn't love it as much as I loved The Dutch House, but I also could hardly bring myself to put it down.

What do we tell our grown children about our lives before we had them? What memories do we keep for ourselves and what ones do we share, knowing that by sharing they will be forever altered? This book beautifully addresses those questions and more. It's about family, relationships, hopes, and dreams all told as a family struggles with boredom, isolation, and farm work during the pandemic. There is a longing for the freedom and fun of youth along with a deep appreciation for the wisdom and stability that comes with age. The latest novel from Ann Patchett is as wonderful and moving as you might expect and I highly recommend it.

I wish given an advanced copy of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ann Hatchery does it again with this novel about family and love. She is a master at examining family relationships. She is a marvelous storyteller and a must read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Publishing for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. The book will be published on August 8th, 2023.

I really enjoyed the Dutch House, and this is another stellar book about family, life and love. Lara's story is told as a dual timeline. In the present, she is the mother of three grown daughters, each pursuing different interests. One daughter will likely marry the boy at the neighboring farm and take over the orchard Lara and her husband run; one will be a veterinarian; and one longs to be an actress. In the past, we journey with Lara as she tells her daughters the story of her pre-orchard life as an actress with a brief dating history of a famous actor.

The way that the author has Lara tell her story is interesting in that some parts her daughters already know by heart and other parts are shockingly new to them...the very idea their mother had a life before marriage and family! Of course, there are the secrets parts that Lara keeps close to her heart that we as readers get to share in.

I love how the stories don’t really go the way you would imagine because life never does. No twisty surprises, just different paths taken in the life journey, each a result of experiences, desires, beliefs, and self insight.

Such an engaging and beautiful read about life and love!! Highly recommend!!

Loved this book and cried my eyes out at the end. This will be a great book club selection and will appeal to readers of literary fiction and women's fiction. So good

A great writer in her prime. Lovely book. Great writing. Overall wonderful! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher

Tom Lake is another wonderful story from Ann Patchett. Lara and Joe own a little piece of heaven in Michigan, a family cherry orchard that they lovingly maintain. Their three daughters, all in their early twenties, are home during the pandemic, and are working to pick the cherries, a daunting task to accomplish without their usual helpers. They begin to ask their mother to tell them the story of her life as an actress when she was young, and especially the story of her relationship with a famous actor, Peter Duke. The summer Lara spent at summer stock with a theater company called Tom Lake, was a turning point in her life, and the characters she met that summer taught her about life and love, friendship and betrayal, loyalty and respect.
Patchett's style is warm and nostalgic, and as Lara recounts her young life, the layers are unpeeled, revealing complex characters who were young performers, trying to get a break and make their way in the theater world.
All the girls were a little in love with Duke, a shining star, ready to take off, a boy who they all recognized would make it to the top of the performing world. Lara was his summer love as well as his fellow actor in the play Our Town. As the summer wore on, the actors practiced every day, and performed every night, living, working and playing together.
Patchett makes this world come alive and as we learn about Lara, and her incredible life, the reader will agree with her, that she made the right choice; her life in this bucolic setting in Michigan with her husband, daughters and cherry orchard, makes her rich beyond measure.

I could not stop reading TOM LAKE, fascinated by the story that Lara tells her three twenty-something daughters during lockdown., the story of being the quintessential Emily Webb in OUR TOWN during her high school, college, and, finally in summer stock theater in Tom Lake, Michigan, where she meets the mesmerizing Peter Duke. (Oh, and she stars in a Hollywood film in between college and summer stock!) An injury interrupts Lara's road to more stardom and sets her life, and Duke's, on a completely different trajectory.
I will definitely be reading this book again!