Commonwealth
by Ann Patchett · 2016
Buy on Amazon"One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly--thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families. Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.…
Recommended by
"Commonwealth isn’t as soaring or as lush as Ann Patchett’s earlier novels, but wow does it ever suck you in. This is a story of families and marriage and love and the unlikely friendship that develops between two sets of children, united in hatred of their parents. Reading it before bed the other night, I found myself laughing even as tears rolled down my cheeks, then gently closing the cover, turning to my husband and whispering, “This book is so, so good.”"
NPR Books We Love — 2016 · apps.npr.org
"How to make a ‘barmaid’s gin and tonic’ to serve people who are already drunk. I’ve never needed to know this, but knowing it is like being let in on a cool little secret. Thank you, Ann Patchett."
Favorite books · radicalreads.com
"I would put a gold, shiny GREAT sticker on, without hesitation."
By the Book: Emma Straub · nytimes.com
"It's the kind of book I love — precisely drawn characters in a family saga that shifts and turns on watershed moments."
By the Book: Nina Stibbe · nytimes.com
""Commonwealth," by Ann Patchett. She is one of my favorite writers, and I loved the ambitious, almost too ambitious, narrative structure of the novel."
By the Book: Roxane Gay · nytimes.com