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Title: Run
Author: Ann Patchett
Genre: Literary fiction
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: A former politician and his two adopted sons have an accident on a snowy Boston night that unearths some family secrets.
Thoughts: I wanted to love this one, I really did. And I actually found it really compelling for the first 9/10ths of the book. Patchett has a way of breathing life into fascinating, flawed, human people who have made a lot of mistakes but still remain deeply endearing. Her language is lovely. Every time she set up another twist or revealed another secret, I turned the page faster.
But then at the end, she kind of just drops it all. A number of secrets are revealed to the reader...but no one else. Some of them are cut off in ways that we know will never be revealed. I suppose it's the literary equivalent of a tree falling in the forest, but it's deeply unsatisfying. A number of plot threads are never finished. Sullivan, the eldest son, abandoned by his family, is abandoned by the author as well. And she doesn't even quite have the courage of her convictions. The last chapter has a time jump to the aftermath of a heartbreaking decision...which is reversed. It's not pointless for the character, but it's pointless for us.
I guess you can muse on the nature of literary fiction. Certainly in real life, people take secrets to their graves and people make momentous decisions and back off them and things are never really resolved. But if I wanted real life, I'd spy on more people at the mall. I come to fiction expecting a story. In the end, a bunch of very interesting things happen to very interesting people...but not a whole lot seems to actually have changed.
Author: Ann Patchett
Genre: Literary fiction
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: A former politician and his two adopted sons have an accident on a snowy Boston night that unearths some family secrets.
Thoughts: I wanted to love this one, I really did. And I actually found it really compelling for the first 9/10ths of the book. Patchett has a way of breathing life into fascinating, flawed, human people who have made a lot of mistakes but still remain deeply endearing. Her language is lovely. Every time she set up another twist or revealed another secret, I turned the page faster.
But then at the end, she kind of just drops it all. A number of secrets are revealed to the reader...but no one else. Some of them are cut off in ways that we know will never be revealed. I suppose it's the literary equivalent of a tree falling in the forest, but it's deeply unsatisfying. A number of plot threads are never finished. Sullivan, the eldest son, abandoned by his family, is abandoned by the author as well. And she doesn't even quite have the courage of her convictions. The last chapter has a time jump to the aftermath of a heartbreaking decision...which is reversed. It's not pointless for the character, but it's pointless for us.
I guess you can muse on the nature of literary fiction. Certainly in real life, people take secrets to their graves and people make momentous decisions and back off them and things are never really resolved. But if I wanted real life, I'd spy on more people at the mall. I come to fiction expecting a story. In the end, a bunch of very interesting things happen to very interesting people...but not a whole lot seems to actually have changed.
