126. Commonwealth
Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Recommended by:
Author: Ann Patchett
Genre: Fiction
322 pages, published September 13, 2016
Reading Format: Audio Book
Summary
Commonwealth opens on a Sunday afternoon in Southern California at the christening party for Franny Keating. Bert Cousins shows up uninvited, kisses Franny’s mother Beverly and setting into motion the termination of his and Beverly’s marriages and the joining of two families. From there, the book skips around time wise as we watch the six children grow up and see the four parents deal with their new lives. When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.
Quotes
“Did you ever want to be a writer?” “No,” she said, and she would have told him. “I only wanted to be a reader.”
“Life, Teresa knew by now, was a series of losses. It was other things too, better things, but the losses were as solid and dependable as the earth itself.”
“He is fifteen and ten and five. He is an instant. He is flying back to her. He is hers again. She feels the weight of him in her chest as he comes into her arms. He is her son, her beloved child, and she takes him back.”
“Half the things in this life I wish I could remember and the other half I wish I could forget.”
“When Teresa was told that she had lost summers, she made a point to curse and weep, but she wondered silently if she hadn’t just been handed the divorce equivalent of a Caribbean vacation.”
“Field after field after field, and not an inch of space wasted on something as decorative and meaningless as a tree.”
“You could see just a trace of the daughter there, the way she held her shoulders back, the length of her neck. It was a crime what time did to women.”
“Lelia gave a dharma talk about letting go of self-definition: I can’t do this because of what happened to me in my childhood; I can’t do that because I am very shy; I could never go there because I’m afraid of clowns or mushrooms or polar bears. The group gave a gentle, collective laugh of self-recognition. Teresa found the talk helpful, as she had been having an extended interior dialogue during meditation about how septuagenarians from Torrance were fundamentally unsuited for Buddhism.”
My Take
Ann Patchett, a very fine writer, has some interesting things to say in her latest novel Commonwealth. As a child whose parents divorced when I was five and who are each on their third marriage, I could very much relate to the splitting up and re-combining of families and all of the issues, problems and emotions that are created as a result. Divorce is a very big deal to the lives of the children affected and it should not be done unless absolutely necessary. Patchett captures the angst and tribulations of children of divorce in a unique voice that really resonated with me. Patchett also has an insightful and humorous take on the expectations of upper class hangers on when they invade one of the character’s summer beach house. I definitely recommend this book.
