Fresh from her Pulitzer Prize finalist novel, The Dutch House, Ann Patchett here turns to essays in the vein of her This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage.
These 23 essays, many brimming with humor yet also with the gravity of the year just passed, include Patchett's affectionate musings on her "Three Fathers" (her biological father and two stepfathers), the people in her community who make a difference and a lockdown-motivated deep purge. She also writes in appreciation of Snoopy, Eudora Welty and Kate DiCamillo. In the course of these essays, she extols the virtues of reading, rereading, writing, rewriting, manual typewriters and letting go of souvenirs of a life once aspired to and no longer relevant. Patchett reveals herself with candor and vulnerability and, in so doing, allows readers similarly to examine themselves.