Commonwealth
Ann Patchett
2016, 332 pages
Fiction
When Bert Cousins can’t face an entire Sunday with his pregnant wife and their three children, he decides to crash a party that he heard about at work. When he shows up at Fix Keating’s door, Fix can’t fathom who would’ve invited Bert to his second daughter’s christening party, but he lets Bert in, and their lives change forever.
Ann Patchett tells the story of two families, the Cousins and the Keatings, starting with Franny Keating’s 1960’s christening party, where Bert sees Fix’s wife, Beverly, and decides she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen to Fix’s 83rd birthday in present day. When Bert and Beverly decide to leave their marriages for one another, the Keating girls are forced to say goodbye to Fix and move to Virginia with Bert and Beverly while the four Cousins children stay put in Los Angeles with their mother. But, the six children spend each summer together when the Cousins kids spend the precious few months in the commonwealth. The kids bond over their general distaste for their unfaithful parents and so pass their summer days sneaking off and making trouble until something happens that makes it all fall apart, again.
These life altering moments take the reader down an emotional, often funny, sometimes heartbreaking path, stopping to check in on all of the Cousins and Keatings along the way and constantly reminding us of the unbreakable bond of family. Definitely recommended.
Nicole ProkopConcord Public Library
Visit CPL at concordpubliclibrary.net.
