Award Winning Author's Dissection of a Family
by mansii
In this dissection of a family, award winning author Ann Patchett's newest novel, Commonwealth, follows fifty years of life in the Cousins and Keating households. From the first glimpses of unraveling marriages, to the aftereffects of divorce, to children now grown with families of their own, she examines the effects of time and the ties of family. In an interview for Bookpage Patchett describes fusing families as the experience of being forced into a group of strangers and forming alliances with them by necessity. How does time effect the dynamics between siblings, between fathers and daughters, mothers and sons? How does the lens of the past effect how we see one another? What might forgiveness look like, or healing from dysfunction? Is this even possible? Digging into the starkness of isolation and wrongdoing, while celebrating our unquenchable capacity for love and redemption, Patchett’s semi-autobiographical work is poignantly human. A highly anticipated work just about to hit the shelves, it’s time to re-discover Ann Patchett.
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