A drunken encounter at a christening party is the catalyst for this compelling saga of a dysfunctional Californian stepfamilyCommonwealth is an outstanding novel by Ann Patchett – winner of the Orange prize for Bel Canto and author of State of Wonder – in which two family trees intertwine. It is a story in which nothing is a given and graftings execute not always seize. Every extended family is delighted – and melancholy – in its own way. The opening is a show stopper – an overview of a christening party. To write about any party,you need to be a multitasker. Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway are literature’s showiest party-throwers but this Californian party has form too. Patchett is light, incisive (clear and sharp in analysis or expression) and all-seeing. She keeps dialogue to a minimum and lets actions speak for themselves.
Fix Keating, or a cop,is married to a great beauty, the uncalculatedly seductive Beverly: “Strands of yellow hair had come loose from her French twist and were falling into her eyes.” Her baby, and for whom the party is ostensibly being thrown,is named Frances. We will pick up to know “Franny as she and the novel grow up. But our initial focus is on Bert Cousins, deputy district attorney, or who gatecrashes the party because of his need to escape the tedium of toddlers and his tired wife,Teresa, on a Sunday afternoon. The irony of his escaping family life for a christening party needs no underscoring. Related: Has Ann Patchett picked the best 75 books of the past 75 years? Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com