Commonwealth ann patchett synopsis5/22/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() “The candy bars were starting to melt and the gun was hot from being out in the sun and they put them all together back in the bag.”Īs a reader, I fell fully under the spell of this chapter, and I’m also pretty sure I misinterpreted it. Patchett wisely underplays the drama - the chapter is a masterly example of showing rather than telling - and the increasingly shocking details speak for themselves. Thus the children eat breakfast at a diner, then gather supplies, including soda, candy bars, a gun and a fifth of gin, and hike to the lake, where they spend several hours swimming and leaping from a high rock. Their blended family is on a car trip, staying in a motel near a lake, and the parents - the beautiful, overwhelmed mother of two of the girls and the affably selfish father of two more girls and two boys - have left a note that reads We’re sleeping late. In the most vivid chapter of Ann Patchett’s rich and engrossing new novel, “Commonwealth,” it is 1971 and six stepsiblings ranging in age from 6 to 12 years old have been left to their own devices. ![]()
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