My eldest and I had agreed to read some real books this summer—something pother than bodice rippers for her, something other than detective mysteries for me. But we didn’t. We were also going to reread some books of old, such as A Tale of Two Cities. But we didn’t. I dutifully downloaded it to my Nook reader, but I never opened the Nook all summer. Maybe all of that was behind my decision to take this book off the library shelf while I was looking for the next Sarah Paretsky novel. Or maybe I thought from the flyleaf description that it was going to be a mystery. I cannot know. I’m only glad I did.The novel is set within a timeframe of 12 hours, except that the first chapter take place mostly 20 years before that and the last chapter pertains to an event that happened four years later. Within that tight 12-hour framework, however, Ann Patchett creates a fantastic unfolding of seven characters as they examine their own lives, so that we share their misunderstandings of what they see and do and what happens to them. I am happy to report that I did not cry while reading this book, but I must confess that my eyelids got damp a few times, easily made up for by the number of times I laughed aloud with the joy of remembering that this is how it was to be a member of a family and to grow up, of what it was like to examine new things form the framework of things known incorrectly in the past.I started this book this morning, while chewing on my breakfast, and I found it so hard to put down that I finished it before making a belated supper. Oh, I managed to do other things during the day, as well--I practiced a Toastmasters speech, mowed the lawn, and sorted through a basketful of old documents and news clippings as part of the eternal process of clearing out my basement--but I kept coming back, until I finally realized that I had to finish it, even though I had many other things to do and not enough time in which to do themI cannot tell much about the plot without spoiling the effect for the author’s development, as she continually surprises the reader by revealing a new truth about the past, so that it’s a bit like reading the Alexandrian Quartet in one novel. The story begins, actually, in Chapter 2, when Bernard Doyle, a former mayor of the City of Boston, drags his two youngest college-student sons, both adopted and of color, to a political rally for Jesse Jackson. At the end of the rally, just before they all go their separate ways in a snowstorm, the youngest son is struck by a car--except that a woman bystander pushes him mostly out of the way, only to be struck herself. The ambulance hauls the woman off to the hospital, leaving her 11-year-old daughter behind, so the Doyles take her with them when they hitch a ride to the hospital in a police car to get the son’s broken ankle looked after, little knowing that they are riding into wholly changed futures for all of them, as well as for the older brother who comes home that night after several years of absence. It’s an extraordinary tale, told by someone who has a knack for letting the reader see into the mind of her characters, as well as for revealing things one at a time so that the story unfolds until we know more than the characters themselves.I’ll be retuning to the library to look for other things written by Ann Patchett.
One out of the park for me - a complete surprise. It was a book club read that others had finished before I started, foolishly I read some of the comments and what I read was not encouraging. I started reading, thinking it was likely to be similar to Bel Canto which I found okayish but not memorable - although I now see that I gave it four stars. it serves me right for pre-empting things! Seriously wow! I am considering another star but will wait and see what further reflection brings. Run resonated so deeply with me that I am left feeling a little breathless. One of the many things I love about books and reading is the way one person responds almost viscerally to a book yet another is left unmoved. I believe this is because it's a contextual thing, our reaction depends on where your head and heart are whilst reading. I suspect this book has had such an impact because I am currently looking at connection in relation to my work - real honest connection appears to be the cornerstone of authentic relationships. The connection theme is strong and interwoven through out this. It is about exploring what matters most, whilst there is lots of distraction around politics, race, religion, financial status and education it comes back to connection. All be it good thought provoking distractions but distraction all the same.The nature vs nurture debate rages through out (a topic that always pulls me in) and whilst we know that genes reign supreme the intricacy with which Ann Patchett presents this, really is clever and there are a few fun twists. The dialogue from each of the characters thoughts is a beautiful thing, I especially enjoyed the son who feels abandoned and betrayed by life's events. In a short 24 hr period he figures a few things out, as does his uncle who has devoted his life to religion begins to wonder at 80 something if perhaps he had it all wrong. One more aspect I particularly liked was the linking of self to home and house.At times I felt as if Ms Patchett resides in my head, her description of how it feels to gain focus around an event through exercise was superb. Already as I use this review to put my swirling thoughts into some semblance of sense I feel a five star rating coming.........and another read some other time.
What do You think about Run (2007)?
This claptrap pile of PC bullshit was built for Oprah's Book Snub. Sainted mothers come in black and white; issues of race and grief receive a sponge-over paint job that would make Bob Ross' happy little tree's wilt and die. Matchstick characters are globbed together with gooey dialogue that spills from their cardboard souls. Everybody's so goddamned pious, righteous and waxen that you pray for an axe-wielding murderer to crop up and start hacking the shit out of these uber-annoying stick figures and their politically correct lives. To call these things characters would imply that they had some. Aside from Truth and Beauty, I would stay away from anything written by Ann Patchett. She's more catholic than Tom Clancy if that's possible... and so out of tune with her own sexuality that it's painful to read her desperate attempts at inking passion or love... beyond some over-simplified, idealized tripe weighted with lazy Christian morality and a despicable PC'ness that permeates your being like a sniff of ammonia and feels as natural as a hospital corner bed sheet cramping your big toe.Fie on this book, I say. Fie
—Frank
I had to ratchet the rating down a star for this one...the more I thought about it, the more I felt like the initial enjoyment I got from this was novel was more a result of my being a willing "choir-boy" being preached to than it inherently being any good.I think I was at first taken in by Ms. Patchett's wildly imaginative (if not a tad contrived) storytelling. It kept me consistently engaged, trying to connect the dots for its protagonists and keeping up with Ms Patchett's flights of whimsy; it was easy to ignore (at first) the author's creative license to concoct a narrative tableau that relied too much on only-in-novel-would-this-ever-fly coincidences and an overt political stance (despite it pretty-much mirroring my own) that practically bashes you over the head.Its principals are two (black) brothers, aged 21 and 20, named Tip (for O'Neil) and Teddy (for, presumably, Kennedy) who were adopted as babies by the (white) mayor of Boston MA and his wife, Outside of a university auditorium where Jesse Jackson came to give a speech, as the brothers were leaving Tip was nearly hit by an SUV...only to to be pushed out of the way by a woman, who we find out is the brothers' mother that put them up for adoption 20 years prior. The entire novel focuses on their lives before and after the accident: what it was like for the brothers as as adoptees, the circumstances that compelled the mother to give up both of her boys to adoption (and adopt a daughter of her own). If Ms. Patchett stuck to this story, and the stylistic writing employed in the first 2/3rds of the narrative, it would certainly have stood on its own, allowing the reader to make observations on his/her own without the last 1/3rd's pedantics, when she decides to spell things out and make this rather tight and focused novel a macrocosmic look at societal ills (racial discrimination, racial disparity, urban gentrification) and freighting it with greater significance than it really earns. The rather pat feel-good ending stood in glaring counterpoint to the not-so-good-feeling story that preceded it.Yet, having said all that, I still liked "Run". I liked it a little less than her most recent novel "State of Wonder", but for the most part it was a pretty solid read. (I'd advise, though, not to spend too much time dissecting it like I did...it tends to fall apart under scrutiny).
—Snotchocheez
In the early stages of reading Ann Patchett's Run, I wondered how the novel had become a best-seller, and if, perhaps, its popularity stemmed solely from the author's previous success with her 2002 novel, Bel Canto, which sold over one million copies, won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was named the Book Sense Book of the Year. The eight main characters (Bernadette, Bernard, Sullivan, Sullivan Sr., Teddy, Tip, Tennessee, and Kenya) are introduced hastily enough that one almost needs a guide to make
—Molly Jones
