Ann Patchett’s new book will win you over, in spite of yourself

Ann Patchett’s novels revel in the tightly constructed ecosystems imagined for their characters: an opera singer besieged among diplomats in the Orange Prize-winning Bel Canto; State of Wonder’s pharmacologist in the Amazon; a fugitive wife hiding in a home for unwed mothers in The Patron Saint of Liars. In this new collection of personal essays collated from publications including the New York Times, Vogue and Granta, Patchett maps out her own life, her own constructed universe. From a post-divorce stint at TGI Friday’s and an early writing career in women’s magazines (a world where some of the greatest writers cut their teeth, not least Jorge Luis Borges), we move towards bestseller lists and the recent opening of her own independent bookshop. Essays on topics as diverse as a holiday in a Winnebago and a love of opera on the big screen lead towards the eventual ‘happy marriage’ — a serendipitous alignment of dissonant forces.

Patchett establishes herself as part of a strong lineage of divorcées. Women are the protagonists here — husbands are carelessly lost in the spaces between essays and generations. However, for all those who bought the book after finding it mis-shelved in the self-help section, there’s no need to fret. This is a success story if ever there was one. Over the course of 300 pages, Patchett makes her peace with men, God and the publishing industry, and doles out a significant bulk of advice along the way.

We sense that Patchett has long been martyred to others’ idiocy. The literature students at Clemson University haven’t even read The Great Gatsby, and hulking men at the LA Police Academy trials are ‘close to tears’ over their written test. Apart from the houseguest who gets sassily sledgehammered for her assumption that ‘everyone has at least one great novel inside them’, these poor souls are generally taken under Patchett’s wing.