Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
This novel is set during the Covid pandemic on a cherry farm in Michigan. Lara and Joe Nelson’s grown-up daughters, Emily, Maisie and Nell are home to help pick the cherries. It is hard, back breaking work and because of the pandemic they have no help from seasonal workers. Lara loves having her girls home and one of the joys of this book is the deep love Lara has for her daughters, Joe and the farm. She considers that marrying Joe, who took over the farm from his aunt and uncle, as the best decision she ever made.
When the story begins Peter Duke, a famous film star, who Lara knew as a young woman has just died. This event is uppermost in her daughter’s minds, and they quiz Lara about her early life as an actress when she acted in a play opposite Peter Duke, before he became famous. The play was Our Town, a play within a play by Thornton Wilder. It was performed at Tom Lake, a summer theatre in Michigan. The play describes the everyday experiences of life, love and death in a fictional town, Grover’s Corner in New Hampshire. Tom Lake is a story within a story, the narrator being Lara Nelson as she tells her girls the story of the time she knew Peter Duke. The narrator for Our Town is the stage manager who is played by a well-loved actor who is a major character in Lara’s story. I knew very little about Our Town so I read about it and this helped my understanding of the novel, but I think a reader will still enjoy the book without this knowledge.
Lara plays Emily, one of the main characters in Our Town and Duke plays her father, Editor Webb, and lines from the play pepper the novel. Lara and Duke have a romantic relationship. Duke is handsome and charming with a self-destructive streak, always looking for an adrenalin high. Duke also takes what he wants without any thought for the hurt he might cause.
Lara falls in love with the rural beauty of Tom Lake, especially the cherry trees and it is not far from Tom Lake that she now lives. The novel is a homage to rural life and the rhythms and continuity when farming the land.
The current day story and Lara’s story about her early career in acting is seamlessly woven together. Lara tells her girls most of the story about her and Duke. But there is one part that she only tells the reader. It is something she hasn’t even told her husband Joe.