Ann Patchett excels once again at drawing the reader into the heart of family and its intricate relationships. It explores the secret world of a mother's first love as she relates the story to her grown children. It was a little slow moving at times and very subtle. It was unsparing in the exposure of our at times, our reckless and naïve youth.

I first read Ann Patchett when her first book was published. It seemed fabulous then and has only grown more relevant and moving. Tom Lake continues a long string of wonderful novels, they are distinguished by being each very different but all with characters and plots that stay with the reader long after the book is finished. I think that I will dream of living on a cherry farm tonight. Thank you for another wonderful experience.

When Lara's three daughters come back to their family's orchard in Northern Michigan in the spring of 2020, they implore their mother to recount the story of her past romance with Peter Duke, a well-known actor with whom she acted and fell in love while working at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara reminisces, her daughters reevaluate their own lives and relationship with their mother, leading them to question their understanding of the world.

Tom Lake delves into the themes of young love, marriage, and the lives of parents before their children were born. It is a bittersweet exploration of what it means to find happiness in the midst of chaos. Ann Patchett's signature skill of weaving together a captivating narrative with perceptive insights into family dynamics is evident in this novel. It is a luminous and engrossing tale, crafted with both emotional subtlety and profound intelligence, that confirms her status as one of the most celebrated and respected literary figures of our time.




Regenerate response

It was great to get to spend some time with all the members of the family in this story, and I enjoyed both the current day Covid era family dynamics, as well as the mother's back story. Another great read from Ann Patchett!

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett is an engaging, bittersweet story within a story. Readers will want to reserve a few days to be embraced by the tale of the Nelson family who lives on a fruit farm in Grand Traverse County, Michigan. Lara, a mother and wife in her fifties, is on the farm with her three adult daughters and her husband, Joe, while the pandemic continues. As Lara and her daughters pick sweet cherries, Lara engages them in the story of her relationship with Peter Duke, an actor with whom she shared the stage and a bed with at summer stock theater on Tom Lake. Highly recommended for a long, lovely weekend. Book discussion groups will enjoy this novel about family and friendship. Tom Lake is a satisfying read.

Excellent book. Patchett delivers a great story with wonderful in depth characters. It's set during the pandemic, but it's not a pandemic story (THANKFULLY!!). It's about mothers and daughters, generations, first loves, and real love that lasts. It's about what we think we want and what we really want. It's about home. Great characters,, great story telling, and beautiful writing. Loved it!

Love love loved this book! It is only March but guessing this will be among my favorite books (if not #1) of 2023. Adored the Northern Michigan setting (my happy place) and theatre back story. The characters were perfection and I didn't want this book to end.

When I first started reading Patchett, I was very young and knew enough to appreciate her literary merit but not enough to feel at home in the turn her novels often take. Ten years later I'm still young but less so, and now feel less like I've been had, and more like I've been taken behind the curtain to where the black and white blend into grey. I will never be 100% at home here, but I can now rub shoulders with the twinge of discomfort and learn something.

Lara's three daughters have returned home to the family's cherry orchard as the pandemic is at its height. Between rows of trees, they beg their mother to recount the story of her summer spent acting at the Tom Lake theater and in a romance with the now-world-famous Peter Duke.

The portions of this novel set in the present, where mother and daughters share a story while sharing the farmwork, just glow. Patchett's prose is reminiscent to me of Wallace Stegner or Leif Enger in Virgil Wander. There's something very mid-20th century about the way she writes in Tom Lake. As always, her insights and turns of phrase are beautiful, and she says such true things about the world and human nature with concision and wit.

In the ways this story is a meditation on motherhood, the warmth and glow of the love of a family, the contentment in a simple life–I loved it.

In the ways this is a searing portrait of the decisions you make in your youth that you can't take back–I felt unmoored and saddened. I wanted Lara to be cut-and-dry and she wasn't. But I always want a black and white world, and growing up, for me, has been the constant work of sorting through what can and can't be set to right. In Tom Lake, she again revisits themes of womanhood, the physical and emotional dynamics of bearing children, and marriage.

I think this is Patchett's best, and best doesn't always mean morally exemplary.

Ann Patchett does it again! This marvelous book offers a mother's take on what love means and how the past is not as cut and dry as we all think. As her daughters' ask her to share the story of her summer fling with world famous actor, Peter Duke, Lara tries to show them that their perception of the past is not all they think. This causes her daughters to reconsider their lives and how the choices they've made can lead to unexpected conclusions. Ann Patchett develops her characters beautifully and takes the reader on the same journey as Lara's daughters.

Ann Patchett's "Tom Lake" shows a family get to know each other in the time the pandemic brought life to a halt.

Three adult daughters return to their parents' Michigan cherry farm and help harvest the crop when the coronavirus prevents seasonal crews from doing the work. Working from dawn to dusk, the daughters demand their mother, a former actress, entertain them with the story of her time at Tom Lake, a summer theater where she acted and dated a movie star.

Patchett unravels a story so competently that revealing too much detail can rob the reader. Patchett paints complete portraits of each daughter, their father, mother and the movie star.

A beautiful story beautifully told.

This was a beautiful book, beautiful story. Everything was so well handled and the layers were constructed expertly. Patchett is one of the best!

I'll confess, I wasn't too stoked about Our Town ... but it turns out this was the novel I didn't know I was longing to read, with its reflective tone, insider look at summer stock theater, and Michigan cherry orchard setting. Just gorgeous.

I was hooked from the start. Patchett delivers a great story with wonderful characters. It's set during the pandemic, but it's not a pandemic story. It's about mothers and daughters, generations, first loves, and real love that lasts. It's about what we think we want and what we really want. It's about home. Great characters,, great story telling, and beautiful writing. Loved it!

I have loved every Ann Patchett book and this one...this one will stay with me. Lara tells her three grown daughters the story of her youth, of being an actor, of dating a man who became famous, of leaving that life behind to be with their father on his family's orchard. There may not be many surprises, but every second of the story is heartfelt and meaningful. The family is together, picking during the pandemic summer, and as they work the orchard together, Lara tells her story. I loved every second of it.

Gosh, I really do love writer Ann Patchett's work - nobody writing today comes close in her ability to explore the human condition & motivations better. Her latest, "Tom Lake" is no exception! Really enjoyed this story of an actress & orchard owner Mother, Laura & her three grown daughters and all the past lives and character exploration - so well-written!! It jumps back & forth in time as it reveals so much to both the reader & the daughters. Highly recommend! My sincere thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for the complimentary DRC, it was a true pleasure to read & review this title.

My thanks to both NetGalley and Harper for an advanced copy of this novel on love, lost love, parenting, growing up growing old and finding that the path most taken is sometimes for the best.

Humans are not fans of the past. Most have a hard time believing there actually was a world and a time before the were born, and a lot care very little for what they are leaving behind. Children just do not understand that the same thoughts they had were probably the same thoughts their parents had. Times have changed for the better in some, regressing in many ways to Puritan eras, but being human parents and children share the same thoughts. Is the the right choice, is this the right decision. Is this love that will last, and can I see myself growing old with this person. Should I go for a dream, or stay with something steady. Maybe children are not fans of these kind of questions, because the answers might be painful for both to hear aloud. Tom Lake by the gifted novelist Ann Patchett is a story about a family, love questions and the worst questions a person can think about their life, what if.

The book starts in the spring of 2020 with three daughters descending on the family farm to quarantine and to help their parents work the farm with a reduced crew. The daughters while gathering cherries began to ask their mother, Lara about the time that she spent as an actress doing summer stock at Tom Lake with a unknown actor at the time Peter Duke, who has gone on to be a very big star. Lara begins to discuss her days, thinking back to that time, and when fame might have been closer than she thought, her performance in the play Our Town with Peter Duke, and her feelings about him, and her thoughts about the man she eventually married.

This is a very rich story told in a simple style that really captures so much. The story is told in a dual-narrative 2020 and the theatre days, and one will not get lost as time shifts. Patchett has a real gift for dialogue, for writing lines that feel real and natural, and as one gets comfortable around the characters readers know this is how these characters would talk to each other. Patchett can set the scene so well from a simple cherry orchard, to a stage, to a kitchen looking out a window. What sets this apart is that this is not a sad story, but a really beautiful one, with a person who is sure what she has done is right, is more than content with her life, and wants her children to feel the same way. There is a genuine joy in this book, a love for life, that is very rare in most fiction books now. Everyone in fiction seems grumpy, or annoyed by life and the people they have around them. There is a very nice feeling in finishing a book, and going well that was pleasant, I hope to find out more about them sometime.

Ann Patchett is a skillful writer who is able to communicate so much in a few words. Recommended for readers who enjoy Elizabeth Strout or fiction that isn't grumpy or whiney, but full of people who are full of life.

Ann Patchett's Tom Lake is the story of a mother before she was a mother.

In the spring of 2020, the three Nelson daughters have returned to their family's cherry farm to wait out the pandemic. The seasonal workers have not come this year, so it's up to the Nelsons to harvest the fruit. Day after long day, their mother Lara entertains them, sometimes reluctantly, with stories from her early adulthood. Her daughters learn for the first time the details (but not ALL the details) of her relationship with a man who would become a movie star, about her own brush with fame, and about the choices and coincidences that ultimately lead her to becoming the wife of a farmer and their mother instead.

Ann Patchett did such a beautiful job writing these characters into life. I love the love the Nelson family has for one another despite their differences. And the farm and Tom Lake! They feel like real places I'd like to visit.

As a side note, I think pandemic-weary readers will be relieved to know that while part of the story is set in the early days of Covid, it pretty much stays in the background.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for an advanced copy of this book.

Tom Lake tells the bright and beautiful story of Lara. Lara and her husband own a cherry farm in Nothern Michigan. It is early in the pandemic and her three twentysomething daughters have arrived home for safety and to help their parents with the cherry harvest. To pass the time her daughters beg their mother to recount the stories of her early life as an actress. Lara was an up-and-coming actress who was acting in a role at a summer stock theater. It is there where she meets and falls in love with Peter Duke, a young man who eventually becomes a very famous movie star.

I loved the dual timeline narrative. I liked getting to know Lara's family in present day and I was on the edge of my seat along with her daughters waiting for the story of her youth to unfold. This story was engrossing, and the characters were compelling. I will be recommending this book to everyone. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book.

P.s. Love the cover- so beautiful!!

Ann Patchett's Tom Lake is a wonderful., engrossing story, and is quintessential Patchett. Tom Lake in a nutshell: Summer 2020. Cherry farm in Michigan. Lara, the novel's main character, tells her three grown daughters about her brief stint as an actor and about her involvement in summer stock where she worked with a soon-to-be (but not yet) famous actor named Duke. The narrative goes back and forth between the summer of 2020 and that summer long ago as Lara's daughter's ask her to unravel the story. Patchett's gift for drawing the reader in and making them care deeply about her characters and their lives is unmatched. I will be recommending this book to everyone!

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! 🍒