There’s something bittersweet about summer’s end—those golden days when the light turns honeyed, the nights grow cooler, and you can feel time slipping away even as you try to hold onto it. Ann Patchett’s latest novel, Tom Lake, captures that poignant, nostalgic mood perfectly. Set during the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020, the story unfolds as a mother recounts a pivotal summer from her youth to her three grown daughters as they pick cherries on their family orchard in northern Michigan. Like the best late summer days, it’s warm, wistful and tinged with melancholy—a book to savor slowly as the seasons change.
A Story Within a Story
At the heart of Tom Lake are two intertwined narratives. In the present day, Lara and her husband Joe are sheltering in place on their cherry farm with their three twenty-something daughters—Emily, Maisie and Nell. To pass the time as they work in the orchard, the girls beg their mother to tell them about the summer she spent as a young actress at a theater called Tom Lake, where she had a romance with Peter Duke—a charismatic actor who went on to become a major Hollywood star.
As Lara recounts that long-ago summer, we’re transported back to 1980s Michigan, where 24-year-old Lara is cast as Emily in a production of Our Town at the idyllic Tom Lake theater. There she meets the magnetic Duke, his tennis pro brother Sebastian, and a talented dancer named Pallace. Swept up in the heady atmosphere of summer stock theater, Lara falls hard for Duke even as she senses the volatility beneath his charm.
Patchett deftly weaves between past and present, contrasting Lara’s youthful infatuation with her settled, contented life decades later. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that summer at Tom Lake was a turning point that set Lara on the path to becoming the woman, wife and mother she is today.
Meditations on Love and Loss
While on the surface Tom Lake is about a summer romance, Patchett uses that framework to explore deeper themes of love, memory, and the passing of time. She captures how our youthful experiences shape us, even as they recede into hazy memory. There’s a bittersweet quality to Lara’s reminiscences—she can recall the intensity of her feelings for Duke, but those emotions now feel distant, almost like they happened to someone else.
Patchett beautifully conveys how our perspective on past loves changes as we age. The Duke that Lara fell for as a starry-eyed 24-year-old is not the same man she encounters years later when he shows up at her farm. Her daughters are fascinated by the idea of their mother’s glamorous actor ex, but Lara has long since moved on, finding deeper fulfillment in her marriage to Joe and life on the orchard.
There’s also an elegiac quality to the novel, a sense of mourning for youth and possibilities not taken. We learn early on that Duke has recently died, adding extra poignancy to Lara’s memories. But Patchett suggests that there’s beauty in accepting life’s seasons, in embracing the path we’ve chosen rather than pining for roads not taken.
Family Bonds
At its core, Tom Lake is a warm, wise novel about family. The easy rapport between Lara and her daughters forms the heart of the story. Their gentle teasing and inside jokes feel utterly authentic—you can sense the deep bonds of love and shared history.
Each daughter emerges as a distinct personality: responsible Emily who plans to take over the farm, scientifically-minded Maisie studying to be a vet, dreamy Nell who longs to act like her mother once did. Through their reactions to Lara’s story, Patchett explores how children struggle to see their parents as full people with complex pasts.
The novel also beautifully captures the rhythms of long-married life through Lara and Joe’s relationship. Their comfortable intimacy and shared commitment to the land stand in contrast to the fleeting passion Lara felt for Duke. Without discounting the power of youthful romance, Patchett makes a case for the richness of lasting love.
A Love Letter to Theater
Theater nerds will find much to love in Tom Lake. Patchett’s depiction of summer stock—the camaraderie, the long rehearsals, the post-show swims—rings utterly true. Her clear affection for Thornton Wilder’s Our Town suffuses the novel. That play’s themes of appreciating life’s simple moments echo throughout Tom Lake.
Patchett captures the particular magic of stepping on stage and becoming someone else for a few hours. But she’s clear-eyed about the challenges of an acting career too. Through Lara’s journey, she explores the often arbitrary nature of success in the arts, and how life’s currents can carry us in unexpected directions.
Pandemic as Backdrop
The novel’s 2020 setting provides a resonant backdrop, with the isolation of lockdown mirroring the remove Lara feels from her youthful self. The family’s work picking cherries takes on extra urgency amidst the uncertainty of the pandemic. There are poignant moments of characters lamenting lost opportunities—Nell mourning her derailed acting career, Emily and her boyfriend postponing their wedding plans.
But Patchett doesn’t dwell heavily on COVID itself. Instead, she uses the pause of lockdown as a framing device, a rare moment when this busy family has time to slow down and share stories. There’s a sense that this period of enforced togetherness is precious even amidst the wider turmoil.
Patchett’s Prose Shines
As always, Patchett’s writing is a joy—insightful, wryly funny, full of perfectly observed details. Her prose has a deceptive simplicity that belies its emotional depth. She can capture a character or mood in just a few deft strokes:
“Duke was so happy when Sebastian was there, we were all so happy, but still, Sebastian’s visits unsettled things, almost as if his calmness allowed Duke to be crazier than he usually was, like a kid who’ll throw himself off of ladders once he knows someone’s there to catch him.”
Patchett excels at illuminating the small moments that make up a life. She finds poetry in the rhythms of farm work, family dinners, long-married couples moving in comfortable tandem. Her descriptions of the Michigan landscape are gorgeously evocative, making you feel the summer heat and smell the ripening cherries.
A Mature Work from a Master Storyteller
Tom Lake feels like the work of a writer at the height of her powers, confident enough to take narrative risks. The story’s structure – with frequent digressions and asides as the daughters interrupt with questions – could have felt choppy in less skilled hands. But Patchett makes it feel organic, like eavesdropping on a meandering family conversation.
There’s a looseness to the novel that mirrors memory itself—the way we circle back to add forgotten details or correct misconceptions. It’s a less tightly plotted book than some of Patchett’s earlier works like Bel Canto or The Dutch House. But that roomier structure allows space for philosophical musings on the nature of love and the passing of time that give Tom Lake its emotional resonance.
Longtime Patchett fans will find echoes of her earlier novels here—the focus on family dynamics from Commonwealth, the exploration of vocation from The Magician’s Assistant. But Tom Lake feels like a step forward too, showcasing a new maturity and willingness to sit with life’s ambiguities.
A Novel to Savor
Tom Lake isn’t a book of high drama or shocking twists. Its pleasures are quieter—the gradual unfolding of a life story, the bittersweet pangs of nostalgia, the comfort of family bonds. It’s a novel to sink into slowly, preferably on a late summer evening with a glass of wine in hand.
Patchett has given us a warm, wise meditation on love in all its forms – youthful passion, lasting marriage, the complicated bonds between parents and children. She reminds us that every love story is unique, that our hearts have room for many kinds of connection over a lifetime.
Most of all, Tom Lake is a testament to the power of stories—the ones we tell about ourselves and the ones we pass down through generations. It’s a novel that will linger with you long after the last page, prompting reflection on your own past loves and the twists of fate that shaped your life. A beautiful addition to Patchett’s already impressive body of work.
If You Enjoyed This Book…
Readers who appreciate Patchett’s warm, insightful exploration of family dynamics might also enjoy:
- Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
- The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
- Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
For more of Patchett’s graceful prose and complex characters, try her earlier novels:
- The Dutch House
- Commonwealth
- State of Wonder
About the Author
Ann Patchett is the author of eight novels, including the Orange Prize-winning Bel Canto and the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Dutch House. She lives in Nashville, where she co-owns Parnassus Books. Tom Lake is her first novel since 2019.
