Tom Lake

　　遠在孩子出生前，那段屬於父母親自己的年少青春⋯⋯
 
　　2020年，賴菈的三個女兒回到了位於北密西根的家族農場來，幫忙摘採大豐收的櫻桃。然而正值全球疫情大爆發的時刻，一整大片的果園，只能靠一家五口親手慢慢摘採，為了度過無聊的農作時刻，加上享譽全球的知名演員彼得．杜克驟逝的消息傳來，女兒們紛紛央求母親賴菈告訴他們，當年與這位知名演員的風流史。
 
　　曾經在地方小劇院上，和得．杜克共譜一段美好歲月，但最終卻在演完一齣大製作的電影角色後，賴菈決定放棄演員生涯，回到這個小小農場，和如今身邊這位溫柔並且始終在旁守護的先生喬．尼爾森共度餘生。而女兒們也藉著母親年少的故事，開始重新審視眼前這個自以為熟悉的一切。
 
　　作者安．派契特以溫暖的筆觸，探索即便在分崩離析的外在環境下，快樂的本質究竟是什麼。(文／博客來外文館)

　　In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America's finest writers.

　　"Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature." —The Guardian

　　In the spring of 2020, Lara's three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

　　Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.