The Five-Star Weekend, Tom Lake and Truth & Beauty

A discussion of Ann Patchett's latest novel Tom Lake as well her memoir Truth & Beauty about her deep friendship with writer Lucy Grealy.  Elin Hilderbrand's latest novel, The Five-Star Weekend, is also discussed. 

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There is no explaining the simple truth about life, you will forget much of it, the painful things you were certain you'd never be able to let go. Now you're not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts the heart stopping Joy's splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different choice and larger sorrows. And unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well. Until one morning, you're picking cherries with your three grown daughters, and your husband goes by on the gator. And you're positive that this is all you've ever wanted in the world. Hello, welcome back to the Red Fern book review. I am your host, Amy Mair. And today we are going to talk about all things and patch it. Now if you read it all, or even if you don't, you've undoubtedly heard about Ann. She is one of the most celebrated authors of compassionate, temporary literary literature. And I love her. And my book club recently chose her latest book, Tom lake. So I thought it was a great time to talk about her talk about some of her other works. Look at Tom lake. And then I picked up another book by her that I hadn't read yet, and wanting to know a bit more about and it's called truth and beauty. And it is a memoir about her deep friendship with her best friend Lucy Greeley, who is also was also an author, and a huge influence on Anne and her writing. And I think it gives a lot of that story kind of tells a lot about and and some things that you might not know, that wanted to look at. So before we get into talking about an I want to talk about, show I'm enjoying and another book that I'm having fun with this fall. Okay, so the first thing I want to talk about was the golden bachelor. I'm sure a lot of you are tuning in. And tonight when I'm recording this is the second episode and I'm really excited. So the golden Bachelor is the bachelor series spin off featuring a widow or in his mid 70s, who's looking for love. And his name is Gary from Indiana, but he's not from Gary, Indiana. And he has a beautiful home on a lake. He is He was married for 43 years for the love of his life. He has two grown daughters and grandchildren. But he has no one to share it with. So with that he slips on his hearing aids in the very first episode and goes out and meets the women. And the women are a bit of a surprise. I talked to a few friends about this and I kind of figured they were gonna veer quite a bit younger to get an audience. But they didn't the women age and range from 60 to 75. And they look great. There's a lot of cleavage, kind of gossamer scarves, sparkles, and bangs I think maybe bangs and Botox but some bangs to kind of softly frame their faces and yeah, so I'm rooting for him. And it's kind of fun. So I will be tuning into that. But okay, so the first thing I want to talk about is Ellen Hildebrand. And she Ellen, for those of you who know about her, she's sort of the Queen of the beach read. And while we have fall underway, and this isn't kind of the time a year you pick her up, I recently read an article about her. And it got me curious. So I talked to my friend Teresa who I know reads her, and she lends her latest book to me, and it's called the Five Star Weekend. So I have that book well underway. And I'm really enjoying it and I just wanted to share a bit about it and a bit about her and her educational background ties in a little bit with and so I thought that was kind of interesting. So what made me curious is that I read an article that said she writes the sort of fluffy books they're set on Nantucket. So Nantucket is sort of the Muse, her muse, but they have depth for the genre. So the characters are well realized. The plots are more complex, maybe then a beach read but at the same time, the heart of the book is a beach read, it's meant to just you're meant to just sort of curl up in a chair or Go to the beach and dive in. So this book, I'll give you a little background on this particular book. The Five Star Weekend is about Hollis Shaw, who is life is seemingly perfect. And she is in her midlife. She has a grown daughter who she doesn't always get along with. And she has a popular food blog called Hungry with Hollis. And she's married to Matthew, who's a dreamy heart surgeon. But they get into an argument one morning, and you kind of get the sense that their life isn't perfect. And he is taking off to go on a business trip. And he leaves a bit late because the argument they had, and it's snowing outside, and he's killed in the car accident. So the police come to her door. And she starts on, you know, you know, journey of grief. And but one of the things she's doing is she's trying to reflect on her life and survive it she reads about something called a five star weekend that another blogger has done, where she comes up with this idea. And the idea is to organize a trip with the best friends from each stage of her life. That's her teenage years, her 20s or 30s and her midlife and they all decide or she decides to convene on Nantucket, which is sort of where she spent every summer of her life. And actually, she grew up there, the author spent some of her life there. But Hollis grew up there and she's moved away. So she lives in the Boston area. So that's the setup. And where I am in the book is I've been introduced to each of these characters that are going to go on the weekend. And they're all packing their bags and getting ready to go. And I'm excited. And it's you know, there's lots of fun talk about movie stars and clothes and food and Nantucket, which has its own mythology, but there is some depth about loss and love and longing. So it's kind of that great intersection. So I'm kind of excited because I was kind of looking for an escape. So the other thing that interested me about Ellen is her background. And what I find really interesting is she went to Johns Hopkins for undergrad, but she ends up oh, she first of all, she lost her dad when she was young. And she had spent every summer on Nantucket with her siblings. So really was her heart and she loves it there. But she ends up at the Iowa writers workshop, which is sort of the Harvard of writing. And they offer an A very famous MFA program, which is also where Ann Wentz and her best friend Lucy went. So it's very serious. And I would say writers go there. Poets, and she was there, but from the get go, she really liked writing fun summer books, sort of. I don't know that beech trees were really a thing at the time. She's 54. Now, so I'm guessing this is 30 years ago. But just her books were lighter. And so then her peers and I don't know about our process, but she would get kind of ridiculed for being superficial. So she's in counseling, kind of feeling down for a variety of reasons. Maybe she's frustrated with the program, her personal life. And her therapist says to her, Well, you must write about Nantucket, because that's really your heart. And so she starts doing that. And now she's considered the queen of beach reads. And she's written about 30 books. But a little aside, I just read I've just discovered her that her plans are is she's gonna publish she publishes about a book a year or sometimes two. And she's going to publish a book in 2024. And then she's going to retire and become a book influencer. So that's kind of interesting. Anyway, if you're looking for something kind of easy, or next time you go away, pick that up. Okay, so now over to something a little more literary. And let's talk about an sow and patch it so I first discovered her along with most of you when she wrote one of my favorite books of all time, certainly in my top five, Bel Canto and bel canto is about it was based on the Japanese Embassy hostage crisis also called Lima crisis of 1996 97 in Lima, Peru, and what she wrote this book around 2001. And it follows the relationships during a hostage crisis in an unnamed South American country, between young terrorists and their hostages, who are mostly high profile executives. And so what happens is, there is a meeting, it's like, there's a big business executive from Japan, who's hosting an event at his home in the South American country. And there is an opera singer there. And it's this big, beautiful night, fancy night. And the hostages are sorry that these terrorists in this unnamed country believe the president of their country is going to be there. So they break in. But the President isn't there. But they still go ahead and take everyone hostage. And they're looking through, they're looking for ransom. They want and they over hours or days, they let most of the hostages go, but they kind of keep the ones behind that they think that they can, that will benefit them that will give them something that they're looking for with whether it's money or power or whatever. So why is this book so great? Well, the writing is great. It's literally lyrical. But I think the beauty of it is it's super scary and terrifying. But through all this, there's two love stories that develop. One is between the translator and one of the hostages. And one is between one of the I think the owner of the house, and the opera singer. And so it's just kind of, it's beautiful, how there's this tragic storyline, and then a bit of Stockholm Syndrome going on. And then the music plays through the whole thing. And bel canto literally means beautiful singing. So that book was actually adds fourth book, and I haven't read her first three. But she really she was a published author, but no really big deal. And then when this book came out in paperback, things just kind of started to open up for her. So there's that. The other book I want to talk about of hers that I love, is state of wonder. And that came out in 2011. And it is a modern take of on Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness. And it's a beautiful book, again, also a little bit scary. But it what it is, it's about a doctor, Dr. Marina Singh. And she embarks on a Odyssey into the Amazon. And she what she's doing is she's trying to find her former mentor, who disappeared while working on a valuable new drug. And so the main protagonist has to confront her own memories of tragedy and sacrifice, and then going into the sort of unknown land. And there's, in this land, she'll find poisoned arrows and snakes, there'll be scientific miracles and spiritual transformations. So I guess I had never thought I didn't really think there was much in common with bel canto at that state of wonder, but I think they're kind of is where there's a serious store, storyline and kind of a beautiful storyline kind of crashed together. But I liked that too, because I really liked the Heart of Darkness. And I thought that was kind of fun that they are very loosely related. I mean, there's like, it's just the main premise of it is the same. But other than that, this is a contemporary book, and I just loved it. Another book that was it was a finalist, I believe for the Pulitzer is her more came out in 2018 is the Dutch house. Tom Hanks narrates that book on audio. And I didn't love that book. But people do love it. And it's it takes place inside house, a beautiful old home and it's these wealthy kids who are grown and they had grown up in this kind of eerie house and think it's their mother has died, but they have to come back to this house and deal with this estate. And I don't know it just wasn't it didn't. I didn't dislike it, but I just didn't love it like the other two. Okay, so that brings me to Tom lake. So Tom Lake is this was really interesting. So I have to first talk about my well This has a lot to do with my book club. It was one of the best discussions we've ever had in my book club. And I'm still trying to figure out exactly why. But the best discussion I thought we ever had was we wrote this book called Read this book called min, the living about a heart transplant. And it was a novel. And it was about all it was written originally in French, and it was about young boy, a young man who dies in an accident, and then how his all his heart and how it he, his family ends up going through the agonizing decision to have his heart transplanted in someone else. And it's all the steps that go through for that to happen and kind of the miracle of transplantation. And it's about, it's kind of a medical book. And I don't know, everyone loved that. But this book, what was interesting is, in my opinion, not much happened in this book, but for whatever reason, we had a really great discussion. So okay, let me just give you a little overview on what Tom Lake is about. So Tom Lake is, it's really a peaceful novel, in many ways. Tom Lake refers to a lake in northern Michigan, where there is a kind of theater kind of camp that takes place where they put on shows like summer stock theater type place. And there's a woman named Lera, Nelson. And she was a rising kind of ingenue and could have been a movie star was kind of, in the very early days, like, had been discovered. And, but it just never did happen for her and wasn't going to happen to her. And so for a variety of reasons, she ends up at summer stock at Tom lake in Michigan, and she's just there for the summer. And she's there to put on the play our town, which is a famous play, and maybe you will know about. But anyway, there she falls in love with Peter Duke, who's also one of the stars of the play, and they have this big romance that you can tell from page one is going to go nowhere fast and is sort of about, you know, that big, young, kind of crazy relationship you have in your 20s. And but what happens is the summer's over, and Lera goes on to live a totally different life. And Peter Duke goes on to have become the biggest movie star of his generation. So that's kind of the setup for that. And now a little than for a little bit more about the book. It's the pandemic. And Leora has three adult daughters, Emily, who will one day take over the cherry farm, and Maisie is studying to be of that. And now who hopes to be an actor like her mom once was, and they've all come home for the pandemic. So you can picture that you remember what that was like. And she's got her husband who he loves, she loves very much Joe, and he's there. So they're all together kind of back in the fold. And she for once and for all decides to tell the story of her love with Peter Duke. Now, her kids had known about this person about this love because Joe had accidentally revealed that at some point during their childhood, and they used to have his all his movies around and would watch them. But she's never really told the story. And so now she's going to tell the story. So that's the setup. But I so Okay, a little bit more I listened to, like, have an interview on CNN with and she just said the point of this movie or book was to talk about love. And it wasn't to talk about heartbreak because she said to get in line. There's so many books about heartbreak, but there's not a lot about quiet. Happy love and how I think the premise of our book is she wants to show that her life could have taken a different direction. And she could have maybe gone on to be a movie star. She could have stayed involved with Peter. But she didn't. And perhaps this life she has picking cherries is the better life after all, that's what she's trying to show. So, okay, so now over to my book club. I, I read this book, actually I listened to an audio so Meryl Streep does the audio, which was awesome. So if a few of us listen to that, and a little bit about audio, I lose about 20% Since when I listened to audio, so I don't remember everything. And that kind of came up when I was listening to my book club talk about the book, I couldn't remember all the details, because I just find it really easy to let my mind wander. But Meryl Streep does a great job. It's like you're listening to a one woman play. She has three daughters of her own. I just thought she did such a good job. But not a lot happens in this book. And I remember thinking to myself, Oh, if this wasn't an audio, I'm not sure that I would stick around finish the book. But in our book club, it was pretty divided. I think everyone kind of agreed. It wasn't and most important book, and not a lot happened. But most of us liked it. Some of us, like me mildly liked it. But in terms of our discussion, the first thing we did was someone instituted this rule, that for the night, we all kind of were in a big circle. Whoever spoke, someone had to then follow up and ask that person to questions. And the negative thing about that is it didn't, the discussion wasn't free flowing. There wasn't like, kind of that back and forth. That happens in a natural enemy and discussion. But the discussion was richer, and people that don't speak that often didn't get talked over. And everyone that talks a lot, you know, they kind of it just kind of even things out and made things a little more interesting. So I like that. Oh, people found the relationship that she had. Laura had with her daughter's a little bit too much. Some people liked it. I really liked it, it reminded me a little women. And as I was reading the book, I thought about that famous photo in an original copy of Little Women, where Meg, Beth Jo and Amy are curled around Marmee, as she's reading to them think she's reading to them, but they're kind of circling her skirts, and some of them are grown and they've got their head at one, I think one of them has her head in her lap. And that's kind of what I thought it was like it was sort of that great relationship. But I liked it because I had also had an interaction with one of my sons Graham, who had just said recently over the summer, you know, this is the first time I've ever looked at you as a person. And I think that's pretty normal. He's 20. And I think that this is the same in this book, it was that sort of realization. These girls really looked up to their mom in ways that Laura had never really recognized before. But they also were starting to see they would see themselves in extension as their mother but also seeing their mother as an individual with a another life. So that's kind of an interesting thing. Oh, people thought there was a lot of implore on cherry picking. So there's, and did a lot of research on that. So if you're interested in cherry picking at all, you they talk about the different varietals and what happens and you know, the temperature and that kind of thing. So I thought it was very authentic. someone reads something that I thought was really interesting. They thought the mention of the pandemic, because it takes place during the pandemic was very triggering. And in this particular book, I did not find that to be true. But in general, if there is a book set around the pandemic, I kind of give it a second thought before I pick it up, because I just don't want to hear about it. And so we had this big talk about that, like, what do you think readers in the future will do when they look back at reading books and the pandemic? Will they care about it? We kept using the word triggering, which I know is a brutal word, but will they be triggered by it? And we sort of thought you know that they may not that they'll see it as interesting, and they'll want to find out more. And it brings to mind that I know one guest on the show talked about if you if you've noticed world war two novels are huge right now. And it is partially because I think they're pandemic adjacent. They show people doing something hard and harder than the pandemic. And then it romanticizes a time where people are going through hard times and there's forbidden romances line spying. Women are taking jobs that couldn't have normally taken, but they got through it. So that's just sort of an aside there, but I think for those of us that have lived through the pandemic, we might not might not want to revisit it, but I think in the future people will, but that's just sort of a interesting thing. Um, oh, and someone else brought tequila because in the end lime and water because in The play our town, the characters are supposed to be drinking water instead of tequila, which is written in the script. But in fact, they're drinking tequila, because that was just sort of a fun aside. So anyway, hopefully that gives you enough information to decide whether you will read it. What I would say is if you love and patch it, you really need to read it. If you don't love and patch it, I think decide what you're looking for. If you're looking for fast paced action, ditch it, if you're looking for kind of a happy, calm, nostalgic book, this is for you, to the people in my book club grew up in small towns, and they just loved it for that reason, because it reminded them of their small towns. So there's that. Okay, so now over to talk about truth and beauty. truth and beauty was written, oh, I'm not sure the Euro was written. I think it was written around 2003. I need to look that up again. But it is a memoir about Anne and her best friend Lucy Greeley. And it's about that toxic, beautiful, deep, platonic love. That can be the hallmark of friendships that we forge early in life or during very important parts in our life where we're broken open, whether it's just having a baby, or I don't know, it's just a it's it's a it's as deep as any marriage, this friendship. But it has some good things and some bad things. So little about Lucy Greeley, both these ladies went to a Sarah Lawrence College in New York. And Lucy was a star there she was Irish. And Lucy had a facial cancer. Growing up ewig sarcoma, I believe. And she had surgeries starting at nine and she'd had many. So by the time she got to Sarah Lawrence, she was partially disfigured. Like, when you saw her, you would notice that, you know, as an we'll write her face was sometimes kind of melting. And so growing up, she was teased, and deeply insecure. But she goes to Sarah Lawrence and reinvents herself, like many people do when they go away to university. And she was an amazing writer, and she had an amazing personality. And everyone loved her on campus. And according to and she, I didn't really know and, and but and knew exactly who she was, and I think and didn't even know if Lucy really knew her, but, and kind of idolized Lucy. And so then they both end up at the Iowa writers workshop just like Ellen. And actually, Ellen would have been just behind them because Alan's kind of mid 50s, and they're now current, or, or Anna's late 50s. So they end up there and think and sort of arranged or one of them got in touch with the other through mutual friends because they needed to find a roommate. So when they first Lucy first sees and I think adds a little bit nervous and Lucy just sort of jumps into her arms like she's meeting her lover on a bachelor hometown date. And that kind of starts our friendship and they just become deep, deep, deep, close friends sharing everything. And Lucy's life is crazy. She is late to having boyfriends and having sex and then she becomes super hypersexual. She parties she's deeply insecure. She continues to have surgeries a lot of their friendship is about and kind of supporting Lucy through her surgeries. But what happens is they both plod along, go through the Iowa writers workshop, and they both get published. But Lucy from the get go is the star and she writes a book called Autobiography of a face and it is a memoir about her experience with her cancers and her surgery, her perception of beauty and self, how she overcame kind of her deep insecurities but how and how they still haunt her. There are a series of interlocking essays. And at this around this time and is getting published too, but isn't sort of a big deal. So Lucy kind of becomes a big deal. And in fact they decide I think they are the same publisher. They decide to do a book signing together and and talks about how there was a book signing. And like 12 people showed up for her and the room was filled with people supporting Lucy. But around the time as in the end, this isn't really secret. Lucy is going to end up dying of a heroin overdose, just as Belle cantos kind of coming into paperback or around that time. So as her star is distinguishing, and stars rising. And what I thought was really beautiful and real about this book was just how they really a deep relationship like this, you kind of wonder what Ann would have done or where her career would have gone without Lucy, and how influential she was. But then also kind of the ugliness sometimes of a deep friendship, like it wasn't always good. Lucy lies it was demanding, she would get jealous, she would sort of disappear and come back into her life. But I really liked it. I thought it was good. And I thought it seemed like really, really honest. But I wanted to read this quote, that I thought was excellent. And it's sort of about their friendship and about the role that writing took them both and in Lucy's lives. And, and writes, with each come to realize that no one was going to save our lives. And then if we wanted to save them ourselves, we had only one skill that afforded us any hope at all. Writing is a job a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon. So with that I wanted to conclude the latest episode of The Red Fern book review and hope I gave you some things to think about if you're looking for something lighter. Pick up an Ellen Hildebrand and also pick up Tom Lake and I really recommend the audio version I thought was really good for dog walks and long writes so happy fall and I will talk to you soon. Okay, thanks for listening. Bye bye