Thornton Wilder's Our Town Gives Ann Patchett's Tom Lake a Wonderful Theater-centric Flavor
by Elyse Sommer
Outstanding new cultural offerings tend to be outnumbered by those that are ho-hum. Even creators of proven standouts (novelists as well as playwrights) now and then disappoint. Not so Ann Patchett, author of the Pulitzer-Prize -winning Bel Canto and other top-drawer novels. Her oeuvre now includes the better-than-ever Tom Lake.
While Patchett doesn't write John Grisham-like thrillers, she sure knows how to draw readers. Her storytelling mastery will have you turning the pages of this dual-timeline story about a farm family's interactions during the pandemic and flashbacks to 57-year-old Lara Nelson's life and love affair as an actress thirty years ago.
The role of Our Town's Emily, which launched and dominated Lara's long-ago life, and the parallels to Thornton Wilder's play, are linked in with wonderful subtlety. To be specific: The Nelson farm has a cemetery like Our Town's Grover's Corners. The oldest daughter is named for the character whose portrayal won her mother a chance to perform with a summer stock company located at a place called Tom Lake.
Emily Nelson, the daughter, just wants to be a good farmer like her dad. But her mother, like many young people's parents, could tell stories of different aspirations in their younger lives. One of Emily's two sisters is indeed a wannabe thespian.
Besides Our Town's pivotal link to Tom Lake's dual narrative, the author has also imbued the book with a distinct Chekhovian flavor. Since the Nelsons grow cherries, their story evokes Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard; and the fact that they struggle to keep the farm flourishing and that the Nelson sisters are not too happily back together because of the pandemic channels my own favorite Chekhov play, Three Sisters.
Despite the novel's theatrical episodes and frequent references to classical theatrical and fictional literature, Tom Lake is an easily relatable contemporary family drama. The episodes about Lara's youthful life and love affair with a charismatic actor who went on to become a famous movie star makes for fascinating detours from Lara 's own eventual life as a happily married farm wife and devoted mother.
For theater buffs like me, details about life at that summer stock company are a special treat. However, Patchett manages to insure that readers understand and enjoy what's going on whether they're familiar with Our Town's plot or the company's second production -- Sam Shepherd's Fool for Love. By structuring the flashbacks between the farm and the theater company, she maintains a degree of suspense and allows for something of a surprise ending.
Tom Lake's beginning establishes that the Nelson girls know about their mother's early career and love affair. But busy as they are helping to harvest the cherries, boredom at the end of these work days, and the news that their mother's movie-star lover has died, trigger their nudging her for full details. Patchett makes brilliant use of this set up to create a richly populated, absorbing and intelligent story. Bravo!
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Both hard cover and digital editions of Tom Lake are currently available. There's also an audio book read by Meryl Streep. (Where isn't Streep offering up her talents these days?)
