Ann Patchett has a new book out, and it’s splendid. 

The author of Bel Canto, The Dutch House, Truth and Beauty (a memoir of her friendship with the poet Lucy Grealy), and two moving, laugh-out-loud collections of memoirs, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage and These Precious Days—to name my favorites among her many—Patchett’s brand new book is Tom Lake.

The cover is beautiful, the audiobook is narrated by Meryl Streep (to perfection). It’s set largely on a lake and in a cherry orchard in Michigan, and features an engaging, deftly drawn, and touching cast of characters in an enthralling story. I’m not sure what more you could ask for in a late summer (or any!) read.

The present-day part is on a cherry farm where Lara and Joe are joined by their three young adult daughters, Emily, Maisie, and Nell, during the early pandemic. Few laborers can come this year, so mom and daughters pick the ripe cherries while dad does everything else on the farm.

When her daughters beg, Lara regales them while they pick with her story of playing Emily in Thornton Wlder’s Our Town in summer stock at Tom Lake in her twenties and of her affair with Peter Duke, who went from summer theater to being a great movie star on the silver screen. The girls are curious! And Lara is a wonderful storyteller who possesses deep poise and calm. (Can’t you imagine Meryl Streep reading this?)

Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town is a lynchpin for Tom Lake. In an interview on the New York Times Book Review podcast, Ann Patchett says she’s read the play every year since the age of 14 when it meant the world to her.

“Every single time I find it comforting, and also it whacks me back into the correct lane, which is that the things that are important in life are the things that are so easy to overlook. Family and kindness and homework and conversation and the moon and the chickens and the flowers. And then it’s over. And the question is, did we remember to keep our eyes open and appreciate what we have or had, or are we always straining to look in the direction of what we didn’t have?”

Ann Patchett says, “Really, Our Town is a very Buddhist text… How do you stay in the present? How do you stay in the present with your eyes open and really see the beauty of what’s around us?

“I get a lot of grief for being too cheerful, or too positive or too kind. But I think that’s where life is. I think life really is in those small moments of kindness and human connection and storytelling.”

Don’t miss Tom Lake.

Ps—The Dutch House audiobook is narrated by Tom Hanks!