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Ann Patchett is the author of four previous novels, including Bel Canto, which won the Orange prize. She writes for the New York Times Magazine, Elle, GQ, The Paris Review and Vogue. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
Run, published by Bloomsbury in August 2007, and in paperback in June 2008, is a moving story of overlapping lives.
Author photo © Melissa Ann Pinney
Fellow novelist KERRY REICHS on ANN PATCHETT
Pretty much anything Ann Patchett ever wrote is a sure thing in my book. I first read Bel Canto, and quickly followed it with everything else. Patchett’s sharp eyes don’t miss much when observing the intensity of relationships and human emotion. She has a deft touch for showing without over-telling, and providing readers with a view straight to the heart of a diverse array of people. Her novel Run is a welcome reminder that there exist good people trying to good in the world, and you feel better for having read it.
Here, Ann Patchett shares entertaining and moving stories about her tumultuous childhood, her painful early divorce, the excitement of selling her first book, driving a Winnebago from Montana to Yellowstone Park, her joyous discovery of opera, scaling a six-foot wall in order to join the Los Angeles Police Department, the gradual loss of her beloved grandmother, starting her own bookshop in Nashville, her love for her very special dog and, of course, her eventual happy marriage. This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage is a memoir both wide ranging and deeply personal, overflowing with close observation and emotional wisdom, told with wit, honesty and irresistible warmth.
Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2012. Shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize 2011. There were people on the banks of the river. Among the tangled waterways and giant anacondas of the Brazilian Rio Negro, an enigmatic scientist is developing a drug that could alter the lives of women for ever.
A gripping story from beginning to end about family relationships, aspirations and dreams. Patchett creates brilliant multi-faceted characters and keeps your attention with such great plot and story telling that you will be up until the wee small hours.
Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2002. Terrorists highjack a gathering in a small Latin American country hoping to hold hostage the President, however he had decided to stay home and so the terrorists find themselves with a group of foreign hostages as their bargaining tool. This is not a book about violence and terrorism though this is a book about a group of people thrown together in extraordinary circumstances and the relationships that develop. A Powerful, emotional, treasure of a book. A "Piece of Passion" from the publisher... Ann Patchett's novel is set in an unnamed South American country and is based on the 1996 Japanese embassy hostage crisis in Lima, Peru. Widely praised as one of the best books of 2001, Bel Canto went on to win the Orange Prize and become a bestseller – and rightly so. Patchett skilfully uses the dramatic events and a superb cast of characters to build a beautifully written novel, bursting with unexpected relationships and a wonderful sense of humour throughout.
Winner of the Orange Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The poignant - and at times very funny - novel from the author of State of Wonder and Commonwealth. Latin terrorists storm an international gathering hosted by an underprivileged country to promote foreign interest and trade, only to find that their intended target, the President, has stayed home to watch his favourite soap opera on TV. Among the hostages are a world class opera singer and her biggest fan, a Japanese tycoon who has been persuaded to attend the party on the understanding that she will perform half a dozen arias after dinner. The tycoon's engaging and sympathetic translator plays a vital role in the subsequent relationships between so many different nationalities closeted together, interpreting not only the terrorists' negotiations but also the language of love between lovers who cannot understand what the other is saying. Ultimately, it is the terrorist strike that does more to promote foreign relations than anyone could have hoped to achieve with the party.
Nashville: Scenes from the New American South beautifully captures my home city of Nashville in this exciting moment of change and growth.- AL GORE This book is excruciatingly gorgeous. Every page makes me homesick. -CONNIE BRITTON A great book about a great city.- JOHN PRINE This has been a time of such great change for Nashville that I think we are all very curious to see who we are now.- GILLIAN WELCH This book reminds me, in the sweetest way possible, that I probably should have never left Nashville.- CHRIS THILE Introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning Author Jon Meacham A dynamic, experiential, and intimate portrait that explores the many sides of the legendary Southern city and country music capital, from award-winning writers Ann Patchett, Jon Meacham, and acclaimed photographer Heidi Ross. Nashville is a creative collaboration that awakens the senses, providing a virtual immersion in this unique American city hailed as the Athens of the South. Patchett, Ross, and Meacham in his introduction, at once capture both the city's iconic historical side-its deep, rich Southern roots, from its food and festivals to its famous venues, recording studios, and style-and its edgier, highly vibrant creative side, which has made it a modern cultural mecca increasingly populated by established and upcoming artists in art, film, and music. Nashville celebrates Nashvillians' beloved locales and events, both established and new, that are the heart of the city's character including: Bobbie's Dairy Dip Broadway Cumberland River Buchanan Arts District Bolton's Chicken and Fish Dino's East Nashville Tomato Arts Festival Germantown The Gulch Grand Ole Opry Pie Town (SoBro) Pride Festival Prince's Hot Chicken Schermerhorn Symphony Center Stanley Cup Playoffs Tennessee Performing Arts Center Tennessee State Fair Third Man Records WXNA Independent Radio Here, too, are engaging vignettes spotlighting the diverse talent that makes the Tennessee city a significant cultural incubator and influencer, including singer-songwriters Marty Stuart, Gillian Welch, and Dave Rawlings; film director Harmony Korine, textile designer Andra Eggleston, country music fashion designer to the stars Manuel, chef Margot McCormack, acclaimed pastry chef Lisa Donovan, and model and musician Karen Elson. Blending exceptional narrative, evocative photography-including 175 black-and-white and color photographs-and a bold graphic design, Nashville is an intimate, textured panorama that brilliantly illuminates one of America's most remarkable treasures.
'Dazzling ... The combination of lightness, warmth and remarkable incisiveness creates a novel that is life-affirming and compulsively readable' Sunday Times It is 1964: Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited and notices a heart stoppingly beautiful woman. When he kisses Beverly Keating, his host's wife, he sets in motion the joining of two families, whose shared fate will be defined on a day seven years later. In 1988, Franny Keating, now twenty-four, is working as a cocktail waitress in Chicago. When she meets the famous author Leon Posen one night at the bar, and tells him about her family, she unwittingly relinquishes control over their story...
A moving story of overlapping lives from the Orange Prize-winning author of Bel Canto Tip and Teddy are becoming men under the very eyes of their adoptive father, Bernard Doyle. A student at Harvard, Tip is happiest in a lab, whilst Teddy thinks he has found his calling in the Church, and both are increasingly strained by their father's protective plans for them. But when they are involved in an accident on an icy road, the Doyles are forced to confront certain truths about their lives, how the death of Doyle's wife Bernadette has affected the family, and an anonymous figure who is always watching.
'Dazzling ... The combination of lightness, warmth and remarkable incisiveness creates a novel that is life-affirming and compulsively readable' Sunday Times It is 1964: Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited and notices a heart stoppingly beautiful woman. When he kisses Beverly Keating, his host's wife, he sets in motion the joining of two families, whose shared fate will be defined on a day seven years later. In 1988, Franny Keating, now twenty-four, is working as a cocktail waitress in Chicago. When she meets the famous author Leon Posen one night at the bar, and tells him about her family, she unwittingly relinquishes control over their story...
Ware Bert Cousins nicht uneingeladen auf der Taufe von Franny Keating erschienen, all das ware nicht passiert. Aber noch bevor der Abend hereinbricht, haben er und Frannys Mutter sich gekusst und damit das Ende ihrer jeweiligen Ehe eingelautet - und beide Familien fur immer miteinander verbunden. Die Keating- und Cousinskinder werden zukunftig die Sommer gemeinsam in Virginia verbringen. Sie schmieden uber die Jahre ein dauerhaftes Bundnis, sowohl aus Enttauschung uber die eigenen Eltern, als auch aus echter, stetig wachsender Zuneigung. Bis es zwanzig Jahre danach ein neues Familiendrama gibt: "e;Taufling"e; Franny hat eine Affare mit einem beruhmten Schriftsteller. Sie erzahlt ihm die Keating-Cousins-Story, und plotzlich wird ihrer aller Kindheit die Grundlage fur einen unglaublich erfolgreichen Roman. Die unerwunschte Offentlichkeit zwingt die Geschwister, sich ganz neu mit ihren Verlusten, ihren Schuldgefuhlen und ihrer Loyalitat auseinanderzusetzen.
Der Champagner fliet, die wundervolle Stimme einer Weltklasse Sopranistin erfullt den Palazzo - die politische Elite feiert ausgelassen. Plotzlich fallen Schusse. Eine Bande von Terroristen sturmt den Raum und nimmt die ganze Gesellschaft in Geiselhaft. Es gibt keinen Ausweg. Und noch ahnt niemand, was die verzaubernde, einende Kraft der Musik in dieser lebensbedrohlichen Situation auszurichten vermag.
THE NO. 1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A powerful story of two families brought together by beauty and torn apart by tragedy, the new novel by the Orange Prize-winning author of Bel Canto and State of Wonder is her most astonishing yet It is 1964: Bert Cousins, the deputy district attorney, shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited, bottle of gin in hand. As the cops of Los Angeles drink, talk and dance into the June afternoon, he notices a heart-stoppingly beautiful woman. When Bert kisses Beverly Keating, his host's wife, the new baby pressed between them, he sets in motion the joining of two families whose shared fate will be defined on a day seven years later. In 1988, Franny Keating, now twenty-four, has dropped out of law school and is working as a cocktail waitress in Chicago. When she meets one of her idols, the famous author Leon Posen, and tells him about her family, she unwittingly relinquishes control over their story. Franny never dreams that the consequences of this encounter will extend beyond her own life into those of her scattered siblings and parents. Told with equal measures of humour and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a powerful and tender tale of family, betrayal and the far-reaching bonds of love and responsibility. A meditation on inspiration, interpretation and the ownership of stories, it is Ann Patchett's most astonishing work to date.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION 2012 There were people on the banks of the river. Among the tangled waterways and giant anacondas of the Brazilian Rio Negro, an enigmatic scientist is developing a drug that could alter the lives of women for ever. Dr Annick Swenson's work is shrouded in mystery; she refuses to report on her progress, especially to her investors, whose patience is fast running out. Anders Eckman, a mild-mannered lab researcher, is sent to investigate. A curt letter reporting his untimely death is all that returns. Now Marina Singh, Anders' colleague and once a student of the mighty Dr Swenson, is their last hope. Compelled by the pleas of Anders's wife, who refuses to accept that her husband is not coming home, Marina leaves the snowy plains of Minnesota and retraces her friend's steps into the heart of the South American darkness, determined to track down Dr. Swenson and uncover the secrets being jealously guarded among the remotest tribes of the rainforest. What Marina does not yet know is that, in this ancient corner of the jungle, where the muddy waters and susurrating grasses hide countless unknown perils and temptations, she will face challenges beyond her wildest imagination. Marina is no longer the student, but only time will tell if she has learnt enough.
Here, Ann Patchett shares entertaining and moving stories about her tumultuous childhood, her painful early divorce, the excitement of selling her first book, driving a Winnebago from Montana to Yellowstone Park, her joyous discovery of opera, scaling a six-foot wall in order to join the Los Angeles Police Department, the gradual loss of her beloved grandmother, starting her own bookshop in Nashville, her love for her very special dog and, of course, her eventual happy marriage. This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage is a memoir both wide ranging and deeply personal, overflowing with close observation and emotional wisdom, told with wit, honesty and irresistible warmth.
There is no greater joy for a bookseller than introducing a reader to a book they will love for the rest of their lives. Those of us in this business are, after all, matchmakers at heart. So consider this little book you now hold in your hands a sort of catalog of matchmakers. --Ann Patchett If I were still a bookseller, I'd be thrilled to share this wealth with my customers. As a reader, I'm deeply intrigued by the range of selections...Do yourself a favor. Add Micawber's Top 50 project to your must-read list. --Robert Gray, Shelf Awareness This book offers lists of favorites that have flown under the radar, but off of bookstore shelves. First published on Hans Weyandt's blog for Micawber's Books, each list includes a bookseller's top fifty books, anecdotes, and interviews about the life of being a bookseller, reader, and engaged citizen. All proceeds will go to American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE). Contributing bookstores include Book Passage, Tattered Cover Book Store, Three Lives & Company, Boswell Books, City Lights Bookstore, BookCourt, Harvard Book Store, Carmichael's Bookstore, Prairie Lights, The King's English Bookshop, Square Books, Magers & Quinn, Micawber's Books, Unabridged Bookstore, Regulator Bookshop, Subterranean Books, Faulkner House Books, Skylight Books, Maria's Bookshop, Inkwood Books, Rakestraw Books, RiverRun Bookstore, Sherman's Books and Stationary, Iowa Book, and Fireside Books. Hans Weyandt is a co-owner at Micawber's Books, an independent bookstore in St. Paul, Minnesota. Ann Patchett is the best-selling author of five novels, including Run, Bel Canto, and most recently, State of Wonder. She owns Parnassus Bookstore in Nashville, Tennnessee.
Als der Biologe Anders Eckman auf der Suche nach Dr. Swenson im brasilianischen Regenwald verschwindet, soll Swensons ehemalige Studentin Marina Singh dem Fall nachgehen und die eigenwillige Forscherin aufspuren, die sich seit Jahren weigert, Berichte an ihr Institut zu liefern. Marina folgt Eckmans Spuren und wagt sich auf eine gefahrliche Reise ins dunkle Herz desAmazonas, um zu klren, was es mit Swensons geheimnisvollen Studien ber die Fruchtbarkeit der Ureinwohner auf sich hat. Doch je nher sie ihrem Ziel auf dem Rio Negro entgegenreist, desto klarer wird ihr, dass sie sich nicht nur den Gefahren des Urwalds, sondern auch ihren eigenen ngsten stellen muss ... Fluss der Wunder ist ein intelligenter Abenteuerroman mit einer faszinierenden Heldin, ein packendes Stck Literatur ber Wissenschaft und Moral, den Schrecken der Natur und das Grauen im Herzen eines jeden, der Grenzen berschreitet, an denen kein Mensch jemals rhren sollte.
Expect miracleswhen you read Ann Patchetts fiction.New YorkTimes Book ReviewAward-winning, New York Times bestsellingauthor Ann Patchett returns with a provocative andassured novel of morality and miracles, science and sacrifice set in the Amazonrainforest. Infusing the narrative with the same ingenuity and emotionalurgency that pervaded her acclaimed previous novels Bel Canto, Taft, Run, The Magicians Assistant, and ThePatron Saint of Liars, Patchett delivers anenthrallingly innovative tale of aspiration, exploration, and attachment in State of Wondera gripping adventurestory and a profound look at the difficult choices we make in the name ofdiscovery and love.
When Parsifal, a handsome and charming magician, dies suddenly, his widow Sabinewho was also his faithful assistant for twenty yearslearns that the family he claimed to have lost in a tragic accident is very much alive and well. Sabine is left to unravel his secrets, and the adventure she embarks upon, from sunny Los Angeles to the bitter windswept plains of Nebraska, will work its own magic on her. Sabine's extraordinary tale captures the hearts of its readers just as Sabine is captured by her quest.
Based on her lauded commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College, this stirring essay by bestselling author Ann Patchett offers hope and inspiration for anyone at a crossroads, whether graduating, changing careers, or transitioning from one life stage to another. With wit and candor, Patchett tells her own story of attending college, graduating, and struggling with the inevitable question, What now?From student to line cook to teacher to waitress and eventually to award-winning author, Patchett's own life has taken many twists and turns that make her exploration genuine and resonant. As Patchett writes, "e;'What now?' represents our excitement and our future, the very vitality of life."e; She highlights the possibilities the unknown offers and reminds us that there is as much joy in the journey as there is in reaching the destination.
Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving, possessive and ambitious father. As the former Mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see his sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his children, all his children, safe.Set over a period of 24 hours, Run takes us from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard to a home for retired Catholic priests in downtown Boston. It shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from one another, and how family can include people you've never even met. As in her best selling novel Bel Canto, Ann Patchett illustrates the humanity that connects disparate lives, weaving several stories into one surprising and endlessly moving narrative. Suspenseful and stunningly executed, Run is ultimately a novel about secrets, duty, responsibility, and the lengths we will go to protect our children.
St. Elizabeth's is a home for unwed mothers in the 1960s. Life there is not unpleasant, and for most, it is temporary. Not so for Rose, a beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to the home pregnant but not unwed. She plans to give up her baby because she knows she cannot be the mother it needs. But St. Elizabeth's is near a healing spring, and when Rose's time draws near, she cannot go through with her plans, not all of them. And she cannot remain forever untouched by what she has left behind . . . and who she has become in the leaving.
Bestselling author and Orange Prize winner Ann Patchett's first work of non-fiction is a searing, emotionally wrenching account of her long friendship with the critically acclaimed, and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy. `It is remarkable for me to remember now that I thought it would be possible to walk away from her, that she might have gone on living, but without me. I know now I never would have had the strength of my convictions. I am living in a world without Lucy. I have no choice about that. If she were alive and I had that choice, I wouldn't have been able to last without her for a day.' What happens when the person who is your family is someone you aren't bound to by blood? What happens when the person you promise to love and to honour for the rest of your life is not your lover, but your best friend? In her frank and startlingly intimate first work of nonfiction,Truth & Beauty, Ann Patchett shines light on the little explored world of women's friendships and shows us what it means to stand together. Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy met in college in 1981, and, after enrolling in the Iowa Writer's Workshop, began a friendship that would be as defining to both of their lives as their work. In her critically acclaimed and hugely successful memoir, Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grealy wrote about the first half of her life: losing part of her jaw to childhood cancer, the years of chemotherapy and radiation, and then the endless reconstructive surgeries. In Truth & Beauty, the story isn't Lucy's life or Ann's life, but the parts of their lives they shared together. This is a portrait of unwavering commitment that spans twenty years, from the long cold winters of the Midwest, to surgical wards, to book parties in New York. Through love, fame, drugs and despair, this is what it means to be part of two lives that are intertwined. This is a tender, yet sometimes brutal book about loving the person we cannot save. It is about loyalty, and about being lifted up by the sheer effervescence of someone who knew how to live life to the fullest.
Now a major motion picture starring Julianne Moore and Ken Watanabe.Blissfully Romantic.A strange, terrific, spellcasting story. San Francisco ChronicleBel Cantoshould be on the list of every literate music lover. The story is riveting, the participants breathe and feel and are alive, and throughout this elegantly-told novel, music pours forth so splendidly that the reader hears it and is overwhelmed by its beauty. Lloyd Moss, WXQRGlorious. The New YorkerAnn Patchetts award winning, New York Times bestselling Bel Canto balances themes of love and crisis as disparate characters learn that music is their only common language. As in Patchetts other novels, including Truth Beautyand The Magicians Assistant, the authors lyrical prose and lucid imagination make Bel Canto a captivating story of strength and frailty, love and imprisonment, and an inspiring tale of transcendent romance.
The author of Bel Canto -- winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Orange Prize and long-running New York Times bestseller -- turns to nonfiction in a moving chronicle of her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.What happens when the person who is your family is someone you aren't bound to by blood? What happens when that person is not your lover, but your best friend? In her frank and startlingly intimate first work of nonfiction, Truth Beauty, Ann Patchett shines light on the little-explored world of women's friendships and shows us what it means to stand together.Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy met in college in 1981, and after enrolling in the Iowa Writer's Workshop began a friendship that would be as defining to both of their lives as their work. In her critically acclaimed memoir, Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grealy wrote about the first half of her life. In Truth Beauty, the story isn't Lucy's life or Ann's life but the parts of their lives they shared together. This is a portrait of unwavering commitment that spans 20 years, from the long cold winters of the Midwest to surgical wards to book parties in New York. Through love, fame, drugs and despair, this is what it means to be part of two lives that are intertwined.This is a tender, brutal book about loving the person we cannot save. It is about loyalty and about being lifted up by the sheer effervescence of someone who knew how to live life to the fullest.
Winner of the 2002 Orange Prize for her novel `Bel Canto', Ann Patchett's stunning first novel is about `pilgrimage and healing...A fairytale. A delight'. It is 1968. Rose Clinton arrives at St Elizabeth's, a Roman Catholic home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky. Rose has fled her dull but loving husband without telling him she is pregnant and has decided to be `a liar for the rest of my life'. As penance, she has also abandoned her widowed and much loved mother, with no mention of her condition. Rose plans to give her baby up because she knows she cannot be the mother it needs. But St. Elizabeth's is home to a healing spring, and when Rose's time draws near, she realises that she cannot go through with her plans. Nor can she remain untouched by those she has left behind; by the ever-watchful Sister Evangeline; by the love of Son, the handyman at St. Elizabeth; or later by the birth of her daughter Cecilia. Enchantingly graceful, Ann Patchett's first novel is about sanctuary and pilgrimage, pain and healing and the helping hand of chance.
Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2002. Terrorists highjack a gathering in a small Latin American country hoping to hold hostage the President, however he had decided to stay home and so the terrorists find themselves with a group of foreign hostages as their bargaining tool. This is not a book about violence and terrorism though this is a book about a group of people thrown together in extraordinary circumstances and the relationships that develop. A Powerful, emotional, treasure of a book. A "Piece of Passion" from the publisher... Ann Patchett's novel is set in an unnamed South American country and is based on the 1996 Japanese embassy hostage crisis in Lima, Peru. Widely praised as one of the best books of 2001, Bel Canto went on to win the Orange Prize and become a bestseller – and rightly so. Patchett skilfully uses the dramatic events and a superb cast of characters to build a beautifully written novel, bursting with unexpected relationships and a wonderful sense of humour throughout.
Third - and breakthrough - novel by an acclaimed American writer with an enchanting, quirky voice. `The Magician's Assistant' is at once a love story and a brilliant portrayal of reinvention about a magician who dies leaving his assistant/wife to discover he has lied about his past. A magician (with one memorable appearance on the Johnny Carson Show to his credit) takes the name Parsifal. He is gay. He has a Vietnamese lover, Phan. When Phan dies of AIDS, Parsifal marries the woman who has always adored him and who has lived with them both, his assistant Sabine. Then Parsifal himself dies in California, suddenly and shockingly, of an aneurysm. Parsifal always said that he had no living family and that he came from wealthy upscale Connecticut stock. The reality is very different, as Sabine learns from his lawyer. He came from a poor Nebraska family and they are very much alive. Indeed his mother and sister are on their way to California to meet Sabine, the daughter- and sister-in-law they know nothing about. It is bad that her husband has died. What Sabine must now cope with is coming to terms with his horrific past and the reason he divorced himself from his family and roots.
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