Finally Friday - Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

 Head to Tom Lake this weekend via Ann Patchett's comfortable writing. Her style is sublime, her characters rich, and Ann Patchett weaves a family tale. 

It's 2020 pandemic and Lara's three daughters return to the family cherry orchard in northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they pick their mother's brain for 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 their relationship with their mother, and are forced to reframe their understanding of the world they thought they knew. (cover blurb)

P. 116  There is no explaining this simple truth about life; you will forget much of it. Lara was thinking.  Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows. 

p.152 "If we're going to be miserable and cry, let's do it in the lake," says Nell. 

Lara:  I drop beneath the surface and open my eyes. It's as if someone brought up all the diamonds at Tiffany's and crushed them into dust, then spread that dust across the water so that it sifts down evenly, filtering through the shards of light that cut into the depth. 

(cover blurb) Tom Lake cuts into the depths of youthful love, married love, and the lives our parents led before they were our parents.  I can't think of a better way to spend a weekend, than to enjoy this book.