I’m not sure this was Patchett’s point, but I left this book thinking a rather unpopular opinion: that perhaps divorce, and being a parent who leaves a marriage where you are unsatisfied (as opposed to actively being hurt, either physically or mentally), harms children? Which is to say–as someone who does not have children, does not want children, but has done a lot of reading on lots of these topics to ensure that clause two is a true statement–we usually assume that a parent in […]

Daphne Fuller, the protagonist of Ann Patchett’s newest novel is a fifty-three old English teacher at an all-girls private school. On a day trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with her older, retired husband, she runs into someone she hasn’t seen in over forty years: her former stepfather Eddie Triplett. They begin spending time together and it helps Daphne fill in some of the blanks from her childhood that have been puzzling her for years. You see, Daphne has never fully understood the story […]

On a snowy night, Bernard Doyle, the former mayor of Boston, drags his two adopted sons to a lecture by Jesse Jackson, Sr. Doyle is white and his sons, Tip and Teddy, are black, but Doyle is by far the most interested in Jackson’s lecture. Tip would much rather be back in the ichthyology  lab with his fish samples, and Teddy would rather be visiting his great-uncle John, a retired priest recently in the news for supposedly curing the sick. Outside the lecture hall, a […]