Book Club Chat :: Tom Lake

When I’m scheduling out when we’ll read our books, the toughest selection is the one that we’ll read in June. This is because this book will fall after our Book Pitch month, when many of us are eager to move on to the next year’s selections.

This year, our June read was Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. Our club has read and loved Ann Patchett in the past. And from time to time we discuss planning a Book Club Sista Trip to Nashville to visit her book shop and hopefully meet her. Personally, Bel Canto is pretty high on my list of all-time favorite books.

That said, I think our discussion of Tom Lake fell a little flat. Several of us (including me) mentioned that while often a good discussion can raise our rating, this one may have actually lowered it. I think this may have been due to our reading it in June. So, with apologies to Ann-whom we adore-here are a few of our thoughts.

(I guess with that downer of an intro, I do need to note that Tom Lake received an overall rating of 4.19, which isn’t shabby. It just isn’t what we expected.)

• It was a nice “summertime” read. It felt light and airy. We adore the cover. It’s a bit romantic, not heavy or dark like many of the books we read.
• As a “COVID novel”, it struck just the right chord. We all remember isolating with our families, hosting movie and game nights. So this aspect felt warm and familiar.
• We wish we’d read Our Town first. While this isn’t a modern retelling of Our Town, there are thematic similarities and intentional nods to Thornton Wilder’s play, i.e., the funeral, an appreciation for simple life, and alcohol abuse.
• Meryl Streep was magical as the narrator of the audio version. It could not have been better.
• This is so relatable to those who are intimately involved in theater. These scenes – auditioning, rehearsals, politics between characters, watching people pick their seats – felt right on target. (The summer troupe aspect reminded us of Dirty Dancing.)
• Discussed Lara’s relationship with her parents and her grandmother. How did these relationships influence her marriage and her relationship with her daughters?
• To some of us, Lara’s daughters come across as spoiled and entitled brats. They are pretty flat, and maybe if they’d been more fleshed out, we would have appreciated the current-day story a bit more. As it is, we were primarily interested in the back story with Duke.
• Lara’s telling of her story with Duke at times felt disingenuous. One thing that may have contributed to this is that at times it was hard to tell when she was talking to her daughters and when she was just talking to the reader.
• Joe – what a guy. Bless him for his faithfulness, enduring his wife’s wistful walk down memory lane, and his daughters’ swooning over his once-rival.
• Duke – what a jerk. Is he too much of a stereotype to be appreciated?
• Significance of the daughters’ names – the women who made the most impact on Lara.
• Finally, Tom Lake feels very different from her other novels. Is this a strength? It stands out?