I don’t want to say I didn’t enjoy reading Tom Lake, but I didn’t. And it’s not that I hated the book. I just hated reading it. I think I understand Patchett’s plot-technique, her repetitive layering of memories, underscoring her homage to OUR TOWN and the idea that life is a cycle that repeats and repeats and repeats.
Tom Lake is heavily indebted to Thornton Wilder’s classic, OUR TOWN, which I’m sure at the time—and for decades after—was a highly regarded, impactful play. And I did enjoy OT when I re-read it as I read Tom Lake. It’s a simple, classic, maybe Greek-like-play, detailing the story of the circle of life/death as depicted in one, small New Hampshire town—the beloved Grover’s Corners. At the outset, we meet the two main families—the Webbs and the Gibbs–and we learn about their pasts and presents and futures. We see their children grow up, marry, have children of their own, and eventually, like those who have preceded them, die.
Central to the action of the play—on a meta level—is the stage manager, who appears every so often to update us on the time/events/etc. He is, according to Lara, a god-figure, who also happens to have been played by her future husband in the Michigan production of Tom Lake in which they met. Lara is the novel’s narrator, who portrayed OUR TOWN’s Emily on three different occasions/locations—at her high school, then in a local, small-town New Hampshire production, and finally in the summer-stock Michigan production in Tom Lake. All of which is to say, Patchett is doing a slow and intricate job of layering one story upon another (Tom Lake’s events/play vis-à-vis Our Town), one production upon another (Lara’s high school production, then the New Hampshire community production, and finally the summer stock production in Michigan), and, lastly, multiple characters/ families/ occurrences upon one another. Key to the novel is a young, flamboyant actor named Duke (Peter Duke, lead actor in the Michigan production of Tom Lake and young Lara’s lover. Young Lara is, in fact, in love with Duke in a way she’s never been with her subsequent husband (Joe Nelson, stage manager in the Michigan production and father of her future daughters).
All of which is to say Tom Lake is a complexly-plotted novel, much like those of Amor Towles, whom I believe Ann Patchett admires (as do I). But Towles’ novels are complicated in a succinct, purposeful way that Tom Lake is not. Tom Lake layers one story upon another, one time upon another (as does its inspiration, OUR TOWN). But it is not an ecstatic, revelatory, explosive melding of story, theme and plot as are Towles’ novels. Patchett’s plot gains impact by virtue of the accretion of one tale/character/time upon another. Even the title of the book, Tom Lake, exemplifies this type of accretion/homage to other places/times/tales. It’s the name of the town in Michigan where OUR TOWN takes place—named after the young boy whose family formerly owned the property on which the summer stock theatre resides. Really, the lake was called Tom’s Lake, but somehow, by a quirky, child’s linguistic shift, becomes Tom Lake. This slight shift in name not only exemplifies the way how idiosyncratic things become part of our shared history, but also nods to the title of Wilder’s play, OUR TOWN. Not quite an anagram of Our Town, Tom Lake, is similar enough in cadence and appearance to underscore the parallels between the two places.
In closing, Tom Lake is a lovely book. It’s just that it’s tedious to read, going over the same material again and again with different characters in different times and places. While admirable, and interesting to parse, Tom Lake is far from the tour-de-forces Towles’ novels are. (Towles is a master architect of plot, especially in the way his plots reveal meaning—where plot and theme become one, as opposed to two different aspects of the novel.) One thing I truly admire about Patchett’s novel, though, is the narrator’s final understanding of true love—enduring love as opposed to romantic, passionate infatuation.
NB – I wish I’d written a review of Towles’ The Lincoln Highway when it was fresh in my mind. Truly a masterpiece of plot, theme, and character, The Lincoln Highway abounds in insights and ironies, not the least of which is the main characters’ trek to upstate New York from the midwest, when their original (and real) intent is to follow the Lincoln Highway westward in search of their long-lost mother.
NBB – One thing important to mention is the present-day setting of the novel–a rural area in Michigan, where the Nelson’s farm is located. This becomes the family home of Lara and Joe and their children, partly inherited and rescued by Joe, who was the nephew of the original owners (OUR TOWN M.O again). Not only do the children grow up on the same farm as Joe and his relatives (the new Grovers Corners), the farm is an apple orchard which gives way to cherries and pears and other fruit throughout the year, much as spring gives way to summer and winter and fall. Again, the endless and beautiful cycle of life that both Wilder and Patchett celebrate.
Julie Krantz 