COMMONWEALTH by Ann Patchett

This is the third Patchett novel I have read in the past year (the others being Tom Lake and The Dutch House). This novel came highly recommended - and I can understand why.

It has been a difficult week personally for me, and earlier in the week I went to Avid Reader in West End, seeking a book I could get lost in the pages of - somewhere I could escape from my own experience into the lives of someone else.

Enter: Commonwealth, by Ann Patchett.

This is the third Patchett novel I have read in the past year (the others being Tom Lake and The Dutch House). This novel came highly recommended - and I can understand why.

Commonwealth tells the story of the Keating and the Cousins’ siblings and the complications of blended families - how they come to exist, how they fall apart and everything in between. Like other Patchett novels, there are no oversrching storylines and no dramatic plot reveals. What there is, is a complex web of humanity. Interwoven stories of individuals whose lives are connected by family, friendship, circumstance or luck. Her characters are so often flawed, as we mere mortals are.

To say more about the plotline would spoil the story - so I can’t. But it is a novel that has not only helped me escape my own world this week, but has given me somewhere else to live rent free over the past few days - I have been thinking about this story a lot. Not because it is a rollercoaster or because you turn a page, resd the words and say “WHAT!” - but because it feels so normal. It feels so possible.

I loved this novel and I suspect I’ll reread it at some stage in the future - and if you haven’t yet, make sure you find your way to Ann Patchett’s writing. It is masterful.