The fact that Bert should not, by rights, be at the party at all is a further ironic twist of the orange juicer. The irony of his escaping family life for a christening party needs no underscoring.īert finds himself in a suburban Eden where thirst is quenched by gin and oranges (in lieu of Eve’s apple). But our initial focus is on Bert Cousins, deputy district attorney, who gatecrashes the party because of his need to escape the tedium of toddlers and his tired wife, Teresa, on a Sunday afternoon. We will get to know “Franny” as she and the novel grow up. She keeps dialogue to a minimum and lets actions speak for themselves.įix Keating, a cop, is married to a great beauty, the uncalculatedly seductive Beverly: “Strands of yellow hair had come loose from her French twist and were falling into her eyes.” Her baby, for whom the party is ostensibly being thrown, is named Frances. Patchett is light, incisive and all-seeing. Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway are literature’s showiest party-throwers but this Californian party has form too. To write about any party, you need to be a multitasker. The opening is a show stopper – an overview of a christening party. Every extended family is happy – and unhappy – in its own way. It is a story in which nothing is a given and graftings do not always take. Commonwealth is an outstanding novel by Ann Patchett – winner of the Orange prize for Bel Canto and author of State of Wonder – in which two family trees intertwine.
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