Ann Patchett has done it again--written a wonderful book where I cared about the characters and was intrigued by the plot. I know she also owns a bookstore in Atlanta which has got to take some time even if she does have amazing staff. How does one person have time for all that?

This book takes place on an orchard in northern Michigan during the first summer of the Covid-19 pandemic. Lara and Joe's three grown daughters are all at home for the summer. Two of them, Nell and Maisie, will continue their lives elsewhere when the pandemic eases up but the oldest, Emily, is helping to manage the farm and plans to marry the boy next door. Meanwhile, since many of the migrant workers haven't been able to get to the farm this year, everyone is hard at work picking cherries. The girls badger their mother to tell them about the summer she spent doing summer stock with the famous actor Peter Duke in the small community of Tom Lake in Michigan. We learn that Lara was hired to do the part of Emily in Our Town, a role she had first performed when she was in high school in New England. Peter Duke played her father but off stage the two were lovers. Lara had been in California earning a living as an actor and it was Lara and Peter's intention to return to LA when the summer was done. But, of course, as Robbie Burns would say "The best laid plans oft gang agley." If you wonder how a girl from the East Coast who had been living on the West Coast ended up living on an orchard in Michigan, that eventually comes out. Her husband, Joe, was the director of Our Town at Tom Lake and he went to his aunt and uncle's orchard nearby after the play was in performance. You'll have to read the book to see how their relationship comes about but that's the beginning. Lara doesn't tell the girls everything about her relationship with Peter Duke but the reader has access to her thoughts. Suffice it to say that Lara did much better marrying Joe than she ever would have with Peter.

Anyone familiar with Our Town will see similarities between that story and this one and not just because the play is referenced frequently. If you haven't read the play or seen it performed, you might want to remedy that lack. ( )

What I loved about this book is the equal push and pull of the past and present: the directionless, indecision, restlessness—all those things that can come on the precipice of adulthood—matched with the assuredness, confidence, and peace that can come later in the adulting season.

This story is told from the comfort of the present where we know the ending, but where learning about the beginning changes everything we thought we knew. When the world shut down in the Spring-Summer of 2020, three young adult daughters all return home to their family’s Michigan farm. While picking cherries in neat orchard rows, the daughters cluster around their mother, picking apart her young adult life before kids, asking and demanding and hypothesizing about details surrounding her esoteric past with a world-famous movie star. The story moves seamlessly between past and present, and it was so easy to feel like I was right there—as a fourth daughter—wanting to know all the details, while also being equally invested in the girls’ stories, too.

If you like reflective stories with a strong connection to place, this is one I’d recommend. Reading this will make you feel like the main character, Lara: “It was like being a leaf in a river. I fell in and was carried along” (59). ( )

What I loved about this book is the equal push and pull of the past and present: the directionless, indecision, restlessness—all those things that can come on the precipice of adulthood—matched with the assuredness, confidence, and peace that can come later in the adulting season.

This story is told from the comfort of the present where we know the ending, but where learning about the beginning changes everything we thought we knew. When the world shut down in the Spring-Summer of 2020, three young adult daughters all return home to their family’s Michigan farm. While picking cherries in neat orchard rows, the daughters cluster around their mother, picking apart her young adult life before kids, asking and demanding and hypothesizing about details surrounding her esoteric past with a world-famous movie star. The story moves seamlessly between past and present, and it was so easy to feel like I was right there—as a fourth daughter—wanting to know all the details, while also being equally invested in the girls’ stories, too.

If you like reflective stories with a strong connection to place, this is one I’d recommend. Reading this will make you feel like the main character, Lara: “It was like being a leaf in a river. I fell in and was carried along” (59). ( )

Beautiful family saga. Interesting exploration of the past and how choices affect our future. I enjoyed this book more then Dutch House. ( )

Audiobook narrated by Meryl Streep--a fantastic listening experience. ( )