![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() When one of them dies in a tragedy as a teenager, the other siblings lie about their involvement in what happened. More specifically, this novel is about two people who leave their spouses for each other, creating a group of six stepsiblings. (Patchett doesn’t write short stories the novel is her form.) There was also discussion of whether the episodic chapters could function in a way as short stories Patchett was adamant that while there might be similarities, they are chapters that ultimately can only work together. ![]() When Patchett came to Houston this past October to read with Lauren Groff for the Inprint reading series, she said Commonwealth was about divorce, an interesting complement to Groff, who said her novel Fates and Furies was about marriage. Patchett handles this daunting time span episodically each of her nine chapters is set in a different time and place, providing an anchoring scene that exposition is then threaded into with a light touch, covering, minimally, the things that happened between chapters. Her newest novel Commonwealth (2016) is no less ambitious in terms of perspective, but even more ambitious in covering a span of roughly fifty-five years rather than just several months. Ann Patchett has more than proven herself a master of the omniscient perspective that seamlessly interweaves the interior lives of an ensemble cast see Bel Canto (2001) and State of Wonder (2011). ![]()
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