Read April 2024 - Well Read Book Club
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| Tom Lake |
Oh, this book. Goodness, how I loved it. I listened to the audio version - narrated by the incomparable Meryl Streep. Perfection! This book really resonated with me - some very familiar themes. It also didn’t hurt that the main character is named Laura. Although early on she drops the ‘u’ and becomes just Lara. ha! I, on the other hand, have spent the better part of my life sounding out the ‘au’ sound for folks! :D
The story takes place on a family cherry orchard in Michigan during the pandemic. Laura and her daughters are tending to the cherry crop and her daughters start asking her for stories from her youth. Specifically, from the time in her youth when she was an aspiring actress and had a romance with her then leading man, now major (just deceased) moviestar. As the days go slowly/quickly by, Laura opens up and shares her story with her girls. We get to hear the story as they do but we also get to hear Laura’s inner monologue where she considers what to share and what to keep to herself. And as she contemplates her daughters personalities and strengths and even weaknesses, alongside her own.
Along the way we learn not only about Laura’s romance with Duke, but about how she met her husband, the girls father, and what brought her to this life on a cherry orchard in Michigan. Laura unveils the story layer by layer, watching as her girls take it in - seeing how they process it and what conclusions they come to. Nell is the most adept at fully understanding what a situation really meant, which leads us to consider what is/has been happening in her life, as well. (would love a book!) We ultimately learn more about Laura’s past than even her daughters do. A decision I completely understand.
The theme of children feeling that their parents lives really only began upon their birth, and so disregarding or not even having curiosity about their pasts before them, was an interesting one. Of course, I grew up on all the stories of both my parents lives - from their birth to their meeting and beyond. And I was always curious to know more - to learn more about what makes them tick. I am confident I do not know ALL the stories... and I know my children, while not nearly as curious about my life before them, certainly do not know all of mine.
There were lines that put me into tears and they were mostly about the deep gratitude Laura had for her dear husband, Joe. Oh yes, I completely get those feelings! How the life Laura ‘thought’ she wanted would have been not nearly as good as the life she actually has been able to live on the cherry farm in Michigan with Joe and her girls. That overwhelming sense of gratitude for what actually IS, instead of what could have been. Yes, I get that most of all.
I loved this book so much that I bought my own audio version to keep - long after I returned the first one to the library. What a stunningly beautiful book, for me, anyway.
Quotes from Tom Lake...
“I put on my nightgown and crawl in beside him, covering the hand that covers his heart. Live forever, I say to myself.”
“There is no explaining this 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 joys, splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different joys 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 are positive that this is all you’ve ever wanted in the world.”
“We clump together in our sorrow. In joy we may wander off in our separate directions, but in sorrow we prefer to hold hands.”
“The rage dissipates along with the love, and all we’re left with is a story.”
“It’s not that I’m unaware of the suffering and the soon-to-be-more suffering in the world, it’s that I know the suffering exists beside wet grass and a bright blue sky recently scrubbed by rain. The beauty and the suffering are equally true.”
“I look at my girls, my brilliant young women. I want them to think I was better than I was, and I want to tell them the truth in case the truth will be useful. Those two desires do not neatly coexist, but this is where we are in the story.”
“Days are endless and the weeks fly by.”
“I am fifty-seven. I am twenty-four.”
“Watching her face is like going to a movie.”
“Or maybe they are children looking at their parents and so our lives began when they began and everything else they colored in with fat crayons any way they wanted”
Here is an excerpt of the audiobook narrated by Meryl Streep.
Read April 2024 - Well Read Book Club
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