by JUDI KETTELER

When Ann Patchett’s publisher sent her to McLean and Eakin Booksellers in Petoskey, Michigan, on her Bel Canto book tour, Patchett was skeptical of how far off the beaten path it was. But she immediately fell in love with northern Michigan, known for its verdant landscapes, vistas of Lake Michigan and beautiful fruit orchards. “I thought, ‘I will come back here every single time.’ It was that beautiful,” says Patchett, a Costco member and owner of Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, where she lives. She later made good friends in the area, so had a reason to keep going back. “I associate being there with deep comfort,” she says.

Her ninth novel, Tom Lake, puts readers directly into that world of deep comfort. Set on a family orchard in northern Michigan in the summer of 2020, Tom Lake is a story within a story. Lara and Joe’s three grown daughters return to the orchard to ride out the pandemic and help their parents pick cherries for the season. As they work, they beg Lara to tell them the story about how, decades earlier—long before she met their father—she acted with and dated the famous Peter Duke. They performed together at Tom Lake, a summer theater company, in Our Town. It matters that the play is Our Town for many reasons, including that it’s a touchstone for Patchett and its themes make their way into the novel. “Our Town is about how huge life is and how small it is. And can we remember to see it?” she says.

Lara relives the story as she tells it to her daughters, bringing it to life with humor, memorable characters and scenes so vivid, readers will feel like they are swimming in the shimmering waters of Tom Lake. But the current setting—a pandemic, the stress of running a family farm, her daughters’ angst set against her quiet joy of having them home again—shapes the story, too. Ultimately, it’s a delicious read (literally, be prepared to crave sweet cherries) that explores family dynamics, a theme Patchett masters time and time again.