The Short of It:

Tom Lake will capture your heart.

The Rest of It:

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family’s orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew. ~ Indiebound

Oh, how I loved this one. It starts off a little slow but once you get into it, it’s very hard to put down. The family dynamic has a very strong pull. These sisters, sharing their stories, their hopes and dreams while working in the orchard will absolutely capture your heart. And their mother, Lara and how she chooses to share snippets of her wildly exciting times as an actress will satisfy any theater kid at heart.

I won’t lie though. It’s not all fun and games. As glamorous as being a lead in a show is, in this case a summer production of Our Town, it has its drawbacks as well. For one, Lara’s infatuation with Peter Duke has her throwing all caution to the wind. A young girl, so in love, is bound to find heartache. No?

As Lara shares bits of that summer with her girls, they begin to put things together and although they thought they knew their mother quite well, they realize that she is her own person and perhaps not everything is to be shared.

I was a theater kid in high school and of course, both my kids went down that same path so it was no surprise how much I enjoyed Tom Lake. You don’t have to be a die hard theater kid to love this story though. It’s about love, the importance of family, the friends we cherished as young adults, and how a life comes to be. Sometimes not exactly as we imagined it but sweet, nonetheless.

Do yourself a favor and find a copy of this book. ( )

DNF @2 hours
This is like an incredibly boring version of the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo but it’s just about one man. And the person telling the story doesn’t know how to just get to the good bits - did not care to keep going.

This is a wonderful story told by the narrator, Lara Kenison to her adult daughters as they pick cherries at their farm near Traverse city Michigan. The story involves Lara’s youthful success as Emily in a small town version of Our Town by Thornton Wilder. She is discovered and then leaves her home in New Hampshire for Los Angeles where she is scheduled to appear in a movie. With many delays to the movie, she wins the part of Emily in a summer stock version of Our town at Tom Lake, Michigan. Her male counterpart Peter Duke goes on to become a famous movie star whereas Lara’s life takes a different path. The story moves back and forth between the 1960s and the pandemic. The three daughters Emily, Maisie and Nell are at home because of the pandemic and to help with the huge cherry harvest. The young women want to know the true story of what went on with Peter Duke and how Lara ended up married to a famer
This story is told so gently, the dialogue reveals the love between the sisters and their parents, the different personalities and relationships between Lara and her girls.
The character development is excellent, the beautiful landscape of the lake and the surrounding panorama add an important ambience to the story.
Great book ( )

Ann Patchett is probably one of the best women's fiction writers out there. I usually don't read romance novels, but a Patchett novel is always a lot more than just the romance. This story centres around a mother and her three grown daughters. They, along with the father, live on a Michigan cherry orchard. The book is built around the mother talking about her early life to her three girls. As she recounts her story, the present-day life revolves around the past story in a seamless way. The book is set in the spring of 2020, and the pandemic is running rampant around the world. The story unfolds as the mother and daughters are picking cherries in the orchard. As Lara recounts her past as a young woman in the theatre and movie world. The past history is mostly about Tom Lake, which is a northern Michigan lake where Lara was performing summer stock theatre. Ann Patchett's no-holds barred look at family dynamics and family evolution through the years is the strong glue that holds this book together and allows seamless transitions from past to present. I must read more Ann Patchett books. I really enjoy her straightforward narrative style. The fact that the book was narrated by Meryl Streep made it extra special. ( )

I'm an Ann Patchett fan. I live in Ann Arbor, and have visited the Traverse City area twice. It's beautiful, even when the cherry trees are not blossoming. I can totally understand why this book is placed in this area. People flock there, especially in the summer. Many pass on visiting in the winter, too close to the winds of Lake Michigan. And with all those people needing something to do in the evening, there's summer stock. Classical music fans even have Interlochen, think between the lakes, nearby. And when the weather isn't cooperating, there's always antique hunting. That's the backdrop for Tom Lake. The perfect mixture of fruit trees, lakes and summer stock. What Ann Patchett adds is a perfect ear for family dynamics.

The narrator is a mother relating to her three, grown or still growing, daughters, her story. They want to know why their beautiful mother, who starred in a movie, who had one of the most famous movie stars as a boyfriend, turned away from it all and chose an orchard in Michigan. The daughters have their own lives, one wants the orchard forever, one wants to be a vet, and one wants to be an actress. They all pitch in on the farm. It takes their all and then some. When the crop is great, the processors lower their prices, and when the crop fails, the prices go up. Not a pretty part of the picture. It builds the notion that the farm is not a given. It will disappear if they don't give it their all. She has bought in. In some sense, the daughters want to know why. Why didn't she take the other fork in the road. Not at all clear why this story is not already well known. In some sense, they want to hear it one more time, in another sense, she adds details as the daughters get old enough. Some details are even too intimate to share with the daughters or even the husband, we they readers get to hear the most juicy bits.

While the place, the orchard, and the people, the family, are very important, this story has one other element which dominants the narrative, the play. Thornton's Wilder's classic Our Town is laced throughout this book. It is the ultimate summer stock offering. And for me, and I'm sure many other readers, every time the Stage Manager role is mentioned, and it is often mentioned, I picture Paul Newman's 2003 revival on PBS and Broadway. Central to this story is the mother being the perfect Emily. She was and is beautiful. She was a natural. Indeed, that was her strength, she wasn't acting, and that showed.

While her daughters were long aware that her boyfriend that summer was Peter Duke, who played George in their production of Our Town. Duke went on to become a world famous actor, starring in many films, all of which they had seen and memorized most of his heartrending lines. The oldest daughter was even convinced that Duke was her real father. They also knew that their mother went on to a starring role in a film. In the book, they even enjoy a showing of one of Duke's most famous films on a "screen" stretched between trees on a neighbor's farm near the lake. It turns out that she and Duke parted ways soon after that idyllic summer, and with time, she eventually crossed paths with the man who had directed them in that production. He admits he was always in love with her but stood aside while she was with Duke. Now in adulthood, he becomes her husband and the father of the girls. It was his family's orchard, which has now become theirs. Patchett weaves all these and many more details into a fascinating tale. I recommend it highly. ( )