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 theatre 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. 'Tom Lake' is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart.

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Book Group Review

The Borrowers Book Group from Kesgrave Library share their thoughts on Tom Lake by Ann Patchett.

This is a gentle, enjoyable story, very readable, not a demanding book but with its subtlety, but not a light read either.

It is set in a specific time, lockdown during the Pandemic, when the whole family is together. Isolated on their fruit farm, looking inwards and back into the past, and their mother’s past – her brief success as an actress and affair with Peter Duke. The references to the Pandemic were well done, not overplayed, but reflected that time with a focus on now and the fear and desperation for the future, climate change and the challenges through change.

We related to the mother and daughter relationships and thought that the generational interplay was well written. The characters were well rounded, written from a female perspective. No real plot, but we engaged with the family and the story. We also gained insights into the challenges of fruit farming and musical theatre, particularly the play ‘Our Town’ which is popular across America.

Recommendation: A gentle, engaging and enjoyable story possibly more for the female reader, which prompted a good discussion.