Tom Lake
On audiobooks, books set in quarantine and hating my current draft
I have never listened to an audiobook.
The reason I pick up a book (this should be obvious), is for the writing. I need to read the words to engage with the text. I need to be able to re-read a paragraph when it knocks me on my ass because of how good it is. Plus, I’m a freak and I like to write up quotes I like from books I’m reading in my Notes App for future reference/inspiration.
When I listen to a podcast, I’m often only half engaged with what’s being said. Too easily, I lose the thread of what everyone is talking about and have to rewind and go back (the only time i am 100% engaged in listening is when i receive a voice note).
So I don’t consider listening to an audiobook reading. I don’t think you can say “oh, I read that!” when, in fact, you listened to it.
I realize some people do just read for the plot, and in that instance, I understand listening to an audiobook. I do get the appeal. I respect that they’re having a moment and they’re bringing more people to books. I just don’t think it’s the same as reading. It’s a completely different muscle.
Am I wrong?? You can tell me.
What I’m Reading
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett - As a rule, I do not want to read a book set in quarantine. It’s too soon for me, it might always be too soon. Though it turns out, there are exceptions, like this novel, which is set in lock down but like in an idyllic way where it’s not in your face, it’s tangential. The family lives on a cherry farm in Michigan — doesn’t get much further from pandemic chaos than that.
While Lara’s three adult daughters are back home, their lives on hold, they get her to tell them the story of the summer she dated a famous movie star— right before he got famous. The story of Lara’s past life is enthralling. To her daughters, it’s a big What If, but for her, it’s the story of how she came to have this family.
I wanted to live inside this novel– at the cherry farm, at Tom Lake, in a cell-phone-less Hollywood and New York. Everywhere Ann took me, I wanted to be.
There’s a moment in the book where one of Lara’s daughters, who longs to be an actress, is jealous of the way things seemed to fall into Lara’s lap without her trying or even really wanting them, and Lara’s reaction hit for me–
It is sentimental and useless to tell someone you would gladly give them your past because the past is nontransferable, and anyway, I would have wanted to give her only the good days.
Apparently the audiobook is narrated by Meryl Streep. Now that I’ve read it, I’m tempted to listen to it (see, i’m not against them)!
Another book by Ann Patchett:
The Dutch House - When siblings Maeve and Danny lose their father, first to their step mother, then to death, they realize the only people they can count on is each other.
This took me a while to read because I cared about the characters so much. We follow them throughout their lives and at no point did I want to let them go!
Another book featuring summer theater:
Good Company by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney - Flora, Julien and Margot met as twenty-somethings in the New York theater scene. Now, they all live in LA. Margot is on a long running television show. Flora, who is married to Julien, is a successful voice over actress, and Julien is still running Good Company, the theatre troop he started in New York.
This multi-POV book flits back and forth between the present and the past. The action kicks off when Flora’s family is heading off to upstate New York for Good Company’s summer season and Flora finds Julien’s old wedding ring in an envelope… the ring he said he lost swimming in a lake a million summers ago 👀
What I’m Writing
The problem with reading Tom Lake is that I am, of course, nowhere near Ann Patchett’s writing level, but I want to be doing what she is doing. She has this way of making me feel physically pained over her characters. In Tom Lake, I knew everything ended up okay because it’s told from the present looking back, but there were points where I was sick with worry over how it was all going to work out for Lara in the past.
Anyway, it’s hard to read a draft. Drafts are not good. I have now finished reading my latest and I want to set it on fire and start over. I want to sink my teeth into it and rip it to shreds.
Here are my running reactions while reading the draft:
This is going to be fun! (naive)
Hang on.. you’re telling me I wrote this? (sincere)
This is so good, guys (lol)
Hm. Idk about this though… (here we go)
No, I did not do this right. Why did I write this? (is anyone good at writing middles on the first try?)
The scenes that were so fun to write… are tedious to read (sad)
This is bad (it is)
Well, at least it’s got a real ending (we can stick a landing)
The good news is, I now understand what my note, “this might happen too fast…” on page 99 meant – things happen too fast in the past timeline and it influences the way things come across in the present timeline.
This is something I can fix. It is all something I can fix. The fixing is the fun part! But the now, the before the fix, not so fun.
I was at least kind enough to myself to underlined sentences I thought were good or hit in the moment… Though apparently I am not generous because I only underlined ten of them.
I will let you peep one of them–
When she laughs, she covers her mouth in a lady-like way that’s inconsistent with the way she carries herself— unapologetically. I bet an old boyfriend told her that her laugh was obnoxious, that she opened her mouth too wide and this practice of hiding it has never left her.
That’s all from me, stay tuned!