Book Review: Commonwealth

By Julia Padgett

Ann Patchett starts us off in California with oranges and gin then weaves a tale that spans fifty years and ends in the snow of Virginia. The opening of Commonwealth should be taught in creative writing courses as how to hook a reader with the complicated lives of family.

Commonwealth has unsettled some of its readers because it flashes forward in time quickly, and decades get skipped and revisited. So, if you like linear, maybe have an open mind before you pick up this book. But if you love characters, word choice, and pondering what life decisions can mean on a larger scale, then you will love Commonwealth.

The story opens with the christening party of Fix Keatings daughter when an uninvited guest shows up with gin and ends up stealing a kiss from Fixs wife Bev. The chapter and sequence of events makes you hungry to learn more about those beautifully crafted people, but instead, Patchett throws you forward, and before you know it, you are following the lives of the many children who became a blended family from marriages ending. In particular, you get to know Frannie, the child of Fix and Bev, and you see how she struggles as a young adult, enters into a relationship with a famous, beloved author, and makes decisions that bring up the pain of loss and the past.

This book does a marvelous job of examining how shame and secrets can drive a wedge that lasts for decades in people. The very public way that the family is about to be exposed to their past is unique and provides enough tension, so readers dont flounder too long in the drama. But the artistry of how Patchett brings those tensions to you never telling, only showing brief glimpses is the definition of a writer who is at the top of her form.

Commonwealth can be a complicated read. But once you are in it, you are just experiencing all the gorgeous flaws and promise of family.