Commonwealth: A Novel

Ann Patchett is such a gifted writer, I so enjoy her stories. She has a tendency to write about how one person can make a life decision that affects everyone in an entire family and in different ways, which is so often the case in real life. And so it is with this interesting novel. I loved it so much that I sent it to my cousin for one of her Summer reads. Enjoy!

4 stars because the ending felt weak. I liked the book, even though the ending felt just like hitting a brick wall

I've been going back and forth on how to rate this novel. It is my first Ann Patchett and I enjoyed her style of writing enough to be willing to try one of her more popular novels, but this book won't stick with me as one of my all time greats.I think my main issue was that I feel like the story, especially the ending, is lacking something. My favorite part was hearing about how everyone ended up in the end, but I thought the actual ending was a real let down and also really didn't even make a ton of sense. I also felt there were a number of tangents brought up that never really developed into anything, which I found disappointing.I enjoyed the characters, Franny in particular, as well as all of their relationships with each other. I appreciated how strong the sense of family is, especially with all of the changes and iterations of family the characters went through, they were always all considered family. I feel like that rings true and is relatable to so many of us who have been through divorce in the immediate family. Once someone is family, are they always family? Or do they go away when someone dies or leaves and breaks that connection? I also appreciate how it seems like the book is saying that you can make mistakes or choose a path you regret, but can still come through the other side to have an enjoyable and fulfilling life.It's a good read and fast enough, once you get into the story. The jumping around in time might be bothersome to some readers, but I found it fairly easy to follow.

I won't go into a lot of detail because a review on 12/31/16 by "Book Club Member" describes this book perfectly. This is a wonderful book about family relationships, often dysfunctional, and how they change over decades. I could not put it down. Set aside a weekend, send the family out on errands, and settle in for a wonderful read. You will not regret it. I read her books twice. Once because I can't put them down, then again to make sure I have all the details. It reminds me of my family - We put the fun in dysfunctional.

Until I was halfway through the book, I couldn't decide if I actually liked it. It's somewhat odd, for reasons I describe below. But I spent $20 on the thing, so I finally made a conscious decision to remain open-minded to Patchett's odd approach. If you take nothing else from this review, let it be that you need to stay open-minded.Structure - very non-linear. This is freaking confusing, at times, until you decide to just stop anchoring yourself to a certain date and let her take you wherever she wants to go. Patchett shifts decades within chapters, and even within paragraphs, and you basically just learn to go with it. She gives no warning and no timeline references.Point of view - omniscient, i.e., all-knowing of all characters. Not a huge fan of this typically, as I find it hard to connect with any one character, but whatever. It's doable.Character overload - I should have made a character chart starting with chapter one. I recommend you do this. There are more than two dozen characters spread throughout the book, referenced often.Grammar - in a few instances, there are conjunctions missing. And at one point, I actually questioned whether this book had a line editor. Then I decided, Patchett can probably do whatever she wants, and it was probably edited at length, and her weird grammatical issues were passed off as "creative".So I realize all of this sounds pretty negative, yet I'm still giving it four stars, and I would still recommend the book, because: this book takes very normal, regular, simple familial issues and presents them in a way that is so visceral. Marital infidelity, tragic accidents, step-sibling relationships, coming-of-age, "time heals all", privacy, etc. - these themes are all presented in such a subtle way that it's hard to identify them while you're reading, yet it is so easy to close the book and realize they existed.(Also, the book is hilarious.)

Ann Pachet's novel "Commonwealth" is a somber reminder of how poor choices made by adults affect their children for the rest of their lives. Bert Cousins, a lawyer with three children (and one on the way) did not relish what should have been the joys of fatherhood. He disliked the noise, the responsibility, and the demands on his own time, delegating all of that to his stay-at-home wife Teresa. Bert went in to the office on the weekends, not only to catch up on work, but to escape the hubbub of the house with three small children. One fateful Sunday, he showed up uninvited to a christening party of a family he didn't really know, just to have an excuse to leave his own house. During the course of a party, involving lots of gin and orange juice, lust sets in and Bert starts kissing, of all people, Beverly Keating, who is the mother of the baby that the christening party is for. Bert would shortly thereafter leave his wife Teresa, and Beverly would leave her husband Fix Keating, and move from California to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Beverly's two children, Caroline and Franny, lived with their mother year round, visiting their beloved cop-Dad dad Fix for only two weeks in the summer. Bert, using his lawyer skills to full advantage, was able to get visitation rights for the entire summer, so that his four children, Cal, Jeannette, Holly and Albie, were forced to spend two months in Virginia. Apparently, Bert just had to "win," because once the kids were in Virginia for the summer, he paid no more attention to them than he had when they lived in California. If anything, the neglect escalated, and stepmother Beverly had no inclination to take up the slack, as Bert's first wife Teresa had done. Small and great tragedies ensue.The book is told from alternate viewpoints in different chapters. Readers get the story over at least five decades from Fix, Bert, Teresa, Jeanette, Albie, Holly,and Franny. Because a lot of the story is revealed from the characters' reminiscing about the past, it is not chronological, and therefore at times hard to follow, but I think that actually enhanced the experience of reading the book. The technique of revealing the plot in different characters' memories had me wondering, "What did actually happen on the fateful day in Virginia?' I wasn't sure until nearly the end of the book. The guilt of the horrific incident haunted five of the six children for the rest of their lives.At one point the author states that the only thing the six children had in common was the absolute hatred of their parents. The kids were teenagers then, and they grew out of it, but it is hard to imagine a sadder backdrop for growing up than to be united in hatred of parents. Not surprisingly, the children had adjustment and relationship issues into adulthood. One of the most significant developments was that bartender Franny encountered Leo Posen, a famous writer, in the hotel where she worked. He was smitten with her, and they developed a decades long relationship in which he took great advantage of her. As they lived together, she told him her childhood stories, which he converted into a book, also called "Commonwealth." Although he had not written a bestseller book in years, "Commonwealth" was a hit. At one point after his resurgence, he practically relegated the much-younger Franny to a servant at a summer house where he was supposedly writing, but where he was actually just pretending to write while he entertained important guests, such as literary agents, publishers, and other authors. Step-brother Albie, a bike messenger in New York City, is given a copy of the book at a publishing house. When he reads it,although all the names have been changed, he realizes it is about his family. He is stunned with knowledge that had been hidden from him, and he felt betrayed by his secrets poured out for all the world to see. He takes off to find the author Leo Posen. When he discovers that Franny is living there with Posen, he is shocked that she had been the one to divulge their family history.The rest of the book follows the mostly unconventional lives and relationships of the siblings and the multiple marriages and aging of their parents and stepparents. It's a book about revenge,acting out, coping, recovering, perseverance, forgiveness, and acceptance. Although I felt very melancholy after I finished reading it, I feel the book is destined to become a classic.

The opening scene is set up like artwork. You understand the background of the characters, the pace of their movements, the absurdity of their choices. You feel the heat of the summer day, understand the lives that the characters lead and the small town that they live in. You feel the music, the alcohol, the excitement, the dramatic turn of events that awaits. You feel some characters sliding out of focus while others are becoming more intensely illuminated even electrified. It’s as if a magic spell has been cast over the christening party with the the arrival of the handsome uninvited DA, his enormous bottle of liquor and love of oranges. The tension and magic builds feverishly until the kiss between Bert Cousins and Fix Keatings wife.“Commonwealth” starts out as a gorgeously written story about two families disrupted so casually, so brutally by this kiss at a christening party. The writing is so tight, so vivid, and the storyline is riveting. It follows the lives of the children and the parents in the aftermath of divorce. Each chapter is it’s own short story, jumping in space and time from the last. There are characters to love, to pity, to sympathize with, to worry about, to mourn for. The characters are all so human and the essence of humanity is explored through each of them.The chapters pertaining to the children growing up together, especially the ones taking place during the summer when all 6 children are together are astonishing. They are so well written and seem to contain so much truth. The amount of abandonment experienced by these children and hatred for their parents is astounding. The children were on their own to do as they pleased and Albie, the youngest, was the only thing holding them back. So, what did they do? They drugged him.Interestingly, this book is semi-autobiographical with many parallels to Ann Patchett’s life. She grew up in a blended Catholic family. Her father was a policeman. Then, there is a chapter about how Franny becomes Leo Posen’s muse. The writer basically manipulates her life story into a novel, entitled Commonwealth, which is entirely her life and at the same not, not at all.This story asks so many existential questions. How important is a moment in time? What would have happened if that one day had gone differently? Would the outcomes have been similar? What is important in the end? How does family shape us?As much as I adored the character development and the first three quarters of the novel, I must admit that some of the magic of it had departed by the end, for me. The characters were dispersed geographically and emotionally. As much as Ann Patchett gave me what I wanted in the end, which was an understanding of all the mysteries and a knowing of how each character of these two families fared in life, this part was far less interesting to me. Still, Ann Patchett is a brilliant, gifted writer and I was awed and amazed for at least the first three quarters of this book.For discussion questions, please see book-chatter.com

When Ann Patchett’s posts on Musing became spaced months and months apart, I knew she was up to something. It’s hardly worth being bummed about infrequent blog posts from your favorite author when you suspect that the woman has locked herself in her house to write something much bigger and much better than a blog post. Finally, last spring, it was announced- Commonwealth by Ann Patchett would be on sale September 13, 2016! It’s been 6 days since its release and I’ve already read it twice- it’s that good!Typically the first novel an author writes is the most autobiographical; instead, Ann’s first novel was about a home for unwed mothers. I saw an interview during which Ann said she wanted to go back and write an autobiographical novel, now that she was in her 50s, and that is exactly what she did."None of it happened and all of it’s true." -Jeanne RayThe book starts out at a baptism party for a baby in which an unwanted guest brings gin, things get crazy, and there is a kiss between two people who should not be kissing. The story follows the baby from her baptism party until she is 52 moving seamlessly throughout time delving into the world of divorce, blending families and grown children of divorced parents.Other reviews have described the movement of time in the novel as “fluid” which is, in fact, the best way to describe the masterpiece Ann Patchett has created. Ann’s is just one of many novels that jump back and forth in time however the passage of time is just that in other books- jumpy. I’ve not read another book that managed time quite so well and it was, indeed, fluid and made the novel that much more beautiful. There are glimpses into lives at various points along the way and the reader is left to fill in the missing years on their own- a task that is quite enjoyable and effortless."She had needed to keep something for herself.'Another aspect that I enjoyed was the presence of books throughout the novel. I’ve always loved books about books and while this was not one of those novels, there were countless books name dropped throughout the novel. Books were often used to assist the various characters during difficult times. There is nothing more comforting than a good book read at the right time and this message was made quite clear."Life, Teresa knew by now, was a series of losses. It was other thing too, better things, but the losses were as solid and dependable as the earth itself."Finally, I loved that this book talked about places familiar to me. Part of it took place in Chicago and Evanston, both places I’ve resided in while just starting out as a special education teacher. I cracked up as I read about where I currently live described as “the parts that aren’t Chicago” which is a common view of Illinois- Chicago and cornfields. I imagine Ann is somewhat familiar with where I live since she dated David Foster Wallace who lived not far from here although I’m not certain if he lived here while they were dating. Regardless, it’s always a fun bonus to be able to visualize from your experience the places being written about in novels.You can debate about your favorite Ann Patchett book all you want, perhaps you liked the plot better in another novel, but no one can argue against this being her best written novel. Each novel is stronger than the novel before and allows her talent to be showcased at an even higher level. I’m so grateful that this novel exists as it fills a hole that exists in literature. So many individuals will be able to see themselves inside of this masterpiece so read it and tell me what you think!

Refleja de forma realista y profunda las relaciones de familia. Una maravilla de libro con una deliciosa narración que te mantiene interesado de principio a fin. No quieres que acabe.A wonderfully written novel that realistically reflects the twisted and deep relationships in many families. It keeps you reading and wishing it never ended.

This is my first Ann Patchett book and, wow, what a read! I could not put it down. Twists and turns, but told so gently (clever!) I just didn't see them coming. I absolutely loved it and towards the end I stayed up late as I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen. Everyone in the book is believable, the stuff that happens also very believable and relateable. Brilliant storytelling, I absolutely loved it.

Ann Pachett hat mich begeistert. Ein tolles Buch, das wunderbar abwechslungsreich geschrieben wurde. Als nächstes war dann gleich Bel Canto dran - ebenfalls empfehlenswert!

Maybe the beginning is a bit slow but the story is marvellous, time goes back and forth across the chapters, developing a well built family history. You get to love the characters, I couldn't put down the book until I finished It!

As disjointed in time as ever, but thematically and emotionally tied together as a symphony. Each character seems true, the flaws and quirks and the depths. Beautiful Beverly, Fix the cop, Bert, Teresa, and all five children. Their friends and lovers. Tragedy and love scatter them, and love brings them together in fits and starts. Or doesn’t. The novel jumps in and out of time, covering fifty years into the near present. Strongly recommended.