When I started reading this book, I didn’t think I’d like it as much as I did, but Ann Patchett won me over. At first, she struck me as a privileged white writer who decided at a young age to become a writer and then went on to immense success in the literary world.
Through a series of gentle essays, she lets us into her life and her relationships, and little by little, it becomes clear, with no self-pity, that her life is not as privileged as might first appear.
Reading between the lines, I’m not sure that her relationship with her mother was very good. A telling point was that during a moment when she felt death was close, it was her father whose love she wanted, a man she only saw for a week once a year.
In one of the essays, she explains her decision to remain childless and again, I feel that there was more between the lines than was written on the lines. Although it’s not said, I suspect her own childhood was a strong undercurrent steering her decision in that direction.
Ann Patchett gives the impression of opening doors and allowing the reader full access to her life, but there is a tactful discretion that hints rather than reveals, which augurs well for her novels (I haven’t read any yet.)
The longest essay, and the heart of the book, deals with her friendship with a terminally ill woman who came into her life just before the pandemic and ended up living with her and her husband for the purposes of treatment. Ann comes across as a kind, generous, yet sensible friend. The burden of worry and grief on her becomes clear even though she doesn’t make it about her and is very clear that the real suffering belongs to her friend.
Throughout, she talks a bit about her writing approach and process. Unlike most writers, she doesn’t write a first messy draft and then edit at the end; instead, she makes every sentence the best it can be before she moves onto the next so that editing at the end is relatively minimal. I was delighted but surprised to find someone who writes like me.
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