‘Commonwealth’ by Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett is one of my favourite authors but this one was a little disappointing. I loved the writing, Patchet is a master at non-cliché insights, but the crazy blended family was a bit hard to keep track of and I didn’t connect with the characters as much as usual with a Patchett novel. The novel was enjoyable enough, it just didn’t grab my attention as well as Bel Canto or State of Wonder did. It did have one of the best opening lines of a book ever…”“The christening party took a turn when Albert Cousins arrived with gin.” I read an interview with Patchett about this book and she gave one of the best definitions of fiction I’ve ever heard: “None of it happened, and all of it’s true.” From the same interview, she said that her father was dying and actually passed away while she was writing this novel, and as I reflect on that, the parts in the story when Franny’s father was dying were the most poignant and most beautifully written–now that makes sense.

“One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.

Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.”