Earlier this year I read The Dutch House by Ann Patchett and absolutely loved the storytelling. You can read my full review here, but my overall description would be that the novel was a poetic ode to family in all its beauty and complexity. The book felt rich.

I am always years behind on best-seller lists, but my best friend had a copy of Tom Lake (also by Ann Patchett) that I remembered being a popular read a few years ago. She cautioned that it was a bit less deep than The Dutch House, but that the storytelling was just as engaging. So, away I went.

If The Dutch House is a sonnet, then Tom Lake is probably more like a sing-songy rhyming poem—less contemplative, but more fun and just as creative. The story of a northern Michigan family that has been reunited due to the early-2020 pandemic restrictions covers the backstory of a middle-aged mom (Lara) who once upon a time had a summer fling with a Hollywood movie star, before he was famous. The plot flits back and forth between Lara’s memories of her summer doing stock theatre at Tom Lake and recounting those sometimes wonderful, often times painful, happenings to her young adult daughters as they pick cherries on their fruit farm.

The pacing of the novel is leisurely without dragging—the way you might slowly wander through a lakeside tourist town on a warm July afternoon, happy to be present and in no rush for the day to ever end. I probably should have/could have predicted the major plot points, but I didn’t want to. I was content to let Tom Lake gently guide me through an occasionally whimsical, but more often grounded-in-reality love story. It was fun, it was flirty, it felt real, it felt smart. Just the kind of modern fiction I wish there were more of. Suffice it to say that if the rest of Ann Patchett’s books are anything like the two I have read so far, I will be a fan forever.

This book may be for you if you also like: books by Anne Patchett; cherry farms; northern Michigan; not-too-cheesy chick flicks; the play Our Town; tennis; swimming in a lake; summer romance; fiction; family stories; mother-daughter relationships; New York; novels; LA; the life of an actor; strong female characters; summer stock theatre; fruit stands; unlikely heroes; family lore.

SDG