Account / Cart / Login / Logout / Newsletter
Commonwealth reels you in from the first sentence.
Don’t begin reading it on your front porch on a balmy southern day with a gentle rustling of leaves in the pecans while neighbors walk by and dogs bark and children call to each other in the distance like I did. Or you might find yourself pondering the import of those first twelve words ("The christening party took a turn when Albert Cousins arrived with gin") for an hour, caught up in their possibility, before you can even move on to the rest of the first paragraph. You sense the weight of what is coming and, yes, it does.
This was my introduction to Ann Patchett and I wasn’t prepared for the way she makes a good story poignant and real and personal with her keen observations of everyday gestures and occurrences.
I am now officially a convert to contemporary fiction.
— Barbette Houser
Commonwealth is the senseless breaking of a perfectly nice mason jar, and then pausing, for hours, to inspect all the differently-shaped glittery pieces left. on the tile floor. I felt every sharp edge and ruined curve. Patchett’s found a style and narrative that embraces her completely.
— Kerri McNair
Commonwealth reels you in from the first sentence.
Don’t begin reading it on your front porch on a balmy southern day with a gentle rustling of leaves in the pecans while neighbors walk by and dogs bark and children call to each other in the distance like I did. Or you might find yourself pondering the import of those first twelve words ("The christening party took a turn when Albert Cousins arrived with gin") for an hour, caught up in their possibility, before you can even move on to the rest of the first paragraph. You sense the weight of what is coming and, yes, it does.
This was my introduction to Ann Patchett and I wasn’t prepared for the way she makes a good story poignant and real and personal with her keen observations of everyday gestures and occurrences.
I am now officially a convert to contemporary fiction.
The humanity of the everyday men and women and children in this book, made more complicated because they are related, will move you. The structure of it, with each chapter telling the story of a family through the lens of one its members at various times in their history, isn’t clever--it’s perfection.
This quiet but riveting tale feels honest and was a pleasure to read.
— Barbette Houser
“Patchett leaves behind the exotic locales and intricate plots of State of Wonder and Bel Canto for an even darker and more difficult place to navigate -- the interior of a blended family over the course of several decades. While more domestic than many of her previous novels, Commonwealth offers plenty of intrigue and surprises as Patchett explores the interaction of a group of children forced into each other's lives because of their parents' impulsive choices. With keen insight, tears of both sorrow and joy, and some real -- if dark -- humor, Patchett pulls readers into this complex family's world, and we are eager for every detail.”
— John Christensen (W), Arcadia Books, Spring Green, WI
“Exquisite... Commonwealth is impossible to put down.”
— New York Times
#1 New York Times Bestseller | NBCC Award Finalist | New York Times Best Book of the Year | USA Today Best Book | TIME Magazine Top 10 Selection | Oprah Favorite Book of 2016 | New York Magazine Best Book of The Year
The acclaimed, bestselling author—winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize—tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families’ lives.
One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.
Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.
When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.
Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.
ANN PATCHETT is the author of seven novels, The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician’s Assistant, Bel Canto, Run, State of Wonder, and Commonwealth. She was the editor of Best American Short Stories, 2006, and has written three books of nonfiction, Truth & Beauty, about her friendship with the writer, Lucy Grealy, What now? an expansion of her graduation address at Sarah Lawrence College, and, most recently, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, a collection of essays.