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Run Hardcover – September 25, 2007
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"Engaging, surprising, provocative and moving...a thoroughly intelligent book, an intimate domestic drama that nonetheless deals with big issues touching us all: religion, race, class, politics and, above all else, family." -- Washington Post
From New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett comes an engrossing story of one family on one fateful night in Boston where secrets are unlocked and new bonds are formed.
Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving possessive and ambitions father. As the former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see is 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 twenty-four 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 each other, and how family can include people you've never even met. As an in her bestselling 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.
- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper
- Publication dateSeptember 25, 2007
- Dimensions6.12 x 1.09 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100061340634
- ISBN-13978-0061340635
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From the Publisher
THESE PRECIOUS DAYS | STATE OF WONDER | TAFT | THE PATRON SAINT OF LIARS | TRUTH & BEAUTY | THE MAGICIAN’S ASSISTANT | |
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THE DUTCH HOUSE | BEL CANTO | THIS IS THE STORY OF A HAPPY MARRIAGE | COMMONWEALTH | RUN | |
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
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From Bookmarks Magazine
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
From Booklist
Review
“Run is deeply moving and absorbing… What Patchett does so well here - as in Bel Canto - is put together a group of disparate people into an unexpected situation and investigate the consequences… Patchett has once again written an intelligent, thoughtful novel that oozes emotional intensity. She is the kind of storyteller who makes the reader sad to come to the last page.” — Financial Times
”Run is strongly recommended.” — New York Magazine
“Ann Patchett can be counted on to deliver novels rich in imaginative bravado and psychological nuance.” — Publishers Weekly
“Ms. Patchett comes home.” — Wall Street Journal
“...a brilliant exploration of the true nature of parenthood.” — Good Housekeeping
“...full of affection and respect, for her characters and for the world, which is why reading her feels so elegant and so satisfying.” — O magazine
“Ann Patchett serves up an emotionally generous fictional slice of urban Americana.” — Elle
“Compelling.” — Kirkus Reviews
“This author specializes in delving beneath the surface...RUN shimmers with its author’s rarefied eloquence, and with the deep resonance of her insights.” — New York Times
“Ann Patchett...has written a spectacular autumn book; moody and thoughtful, gentle in its handling of weighty topics, and quietly suspensful. [T]he ending is an emotionally poignant culmination.” — St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“...engaging, surprising, provocative and moving...a thoroughly intelligent book, an intimate domestic drama that nonetheless deals with big issues touching us all: religion, race, class, politics and, above all else, family.” — Washington Post
From the Back Cover
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 twenty-four 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 each other, and how family can include people you've never even met. As in her bestselling 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.
About the Author
Ann Patchett is the author of novels, most recently the #1 New York Times bestselling Tom Lake, works of nonfiction, and children's books. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the PEN/Faulkner, the Women's Prize for Fiction in the UK, and the Book Sense Book of the Year. Her novel The Dutch House was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages, and Time magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. President Biden awarded her the National Humanities Medal in recognition of her contributions to American culture. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is the owner of Parnassus Books.
From The Washington Post
This fifth novel by the author of the much-admired Bel Canto is engaging, surprising, provocative and moving. Its force is diminished somewhat by a couple of extended passages in which Ann Patchett resorts to conversation rather than action to fill in some of her plot's holes, but these are minor annoyances in what is otherwise a thoroughly intelligent book, an intimate domestic drama that nonetheless deals with big issues touching us all: religion, race, class, politics and, above all else, family.
Patchett opens the story with the description of a small statue of ambiguous provenance that has been in the Sullivan/Doyle families for three generations. It is of Mary Queen of Angels, but it bears a striking resemblance to Bernadette Doyle, who died more than a decade ago, leaving a husband (whom Patchett simply calls Doyle throughout) and three sons. The statue is "maybe a foot and a half high, carved from rosewood and painted with such a delicate hand that many generations later her cheeks still bore the high, translucent flush of a girl startled by a compliment." Traditionally the statue has been handed down to a daughter, but since Bernadette left none, its future is in doubt; where it ends up, and how, are the threads along which Patchett has strung her tale.
Doyle and Bernadette had one son, Sullivan, and about a decade later adopted two, Tip and Teddy. The younger boys are African American, now 21 and 20 years old; Sullivan is 33 and, in the years since a terrible auto accident, rarely at home. In the decade and a half since Bernadette's death from cancer, Doyle has been the younger boys' father, mother, teacher and caretaker, and his love for them is almost painfully intense. It is also, as is often true of love, complicated, because Doyle wants nothing so much as for his adopted sons to follow him into his own cherished career of politics. He is a former mayor of Boston, and when Tip, a student at Harvard, develops a passionate interest in fish, Doyle is taken aback:
"He would admit that his [own] youth had been marked by a great interest in marine life, but that it came along with an interest in the Red Sox and Latin, twentieth-century American novels, Schubert, the Democratic Party and the Catholic Church. His plan had been to pass all of those interests and dozens more along to the boys in equal measure in hopes of making them well-rounded, well-educated citizens. He did not mean for any of his sons to become ichthyologists. He had meant for them, at least one of them, to be the president of the United States."
Both boys are appealing and apt, but neither shows much interest in taking up their father's causes. "Tip was smarter and Teddy was sweeter. They had heard it since a time before memory," though it really isn't true because "Teddy wasn't stupid, he just wandered." While Tip "could be pinned into place by an idea," Teddy is haunted by the memory of his lost mother and wants nothing so much as to be told stories about her: "That was how he came to be so close to his great-uncle, Father Sullivan. It turned out that the priest had stories stacked up like dinner napkins. . . . Somewhere along the line Teddy's love for his mother had become his love for Father Sullivan, and his love for Father Sullivan became his love for God."
So one son wants to be an ichthyologist and the other may -- the jury is still out -- want to be a priest. It's hardly what Doyle had bargained for, and he resists it with all his quite considerable might. At the age of 63 he tries "very hard to think of ways to keep ahead of his sons," but it gives much evidence of being a losing cause. These are "the last moments of his ability to exert any sort of parental authority." He has retained an "essential closeness" with the boys not merely because of love but also because this closeness "was born out of their own bad luck." Now, on the brink of adulthood, they remain deeply loyal to him, but they are about to head in their own directions, ones not dictated by Doyle.
Then an accident occurs. Walking with his father after having been dragged to a political speech, Tip suddenly is struck by a passing car. He might well have been killed had not a woman, a stranger, leaped out of the dark and shoved him away. Tip suffers a relatively minor injury, but her condition is more serious. Her name is Tennessee Alice Moser, and she is African American. She is taken to the hospital, leaving her 11-year-old daughter, Kenya, at loose ends. Doyle allows her to spend the night at his house, but he does so reluctantly, because he fears that sheltering someone else's child could lead to unpleasant legal complications.
It leads to complications, all right, but not the ones that Doyle fears. When it becomes clear that Tennessee will be hospitalized for some time, the Doyles find they have little choice except to let Kenya stay on with them in their comfortable house in a part of Boston where gentrification is still a sometime thing. It turns out that Tennessee's tidy but very modest apartment is barely a stone's throw away: "That was Boston: on one block there were houses so beautiful the mayor himself could be living in one and three blocks away there was a housing project where it maybe wasn't always so nice but it was still a lot nicer than some other places." The project is called Cathedral:
"The sprawl of mustardy-yellow brick buildings turned into something of a maze and no good ever came of mazes, but there was a playground that kids actually used. Because it sat hip to hip against a better neighborhood, it was patrolled with greater regularity. The police pushed down hard on the nefarious elements and in doing so managed to hassle most of the decent citizens as well, so the crime rates stayed down and for the most part no one was happy. Boston Medical Center was only blocks away. There was a woman's shelter, a food pantry, plenty of resources and yet every one of them was stretched thin enough to snap. If Doyle could have been the mayor again he liked to think there were some things he would do differently."
Doyle is a believer in politics. He thinks that "it's something that a person has to do," and he would agree with another character who believes that "there were some people who had the ability to tell other people what was worth wanting, could tell them in a way that was so powerful that the people who heard them suddenly had their eyes opened to what had been withheld from them all along." He feels responsible for the difference between the lives of the people living in Cathedral and those living in more prosperous neighborhoods, though history makes plain that there's only so much that he -- or anyone else in public office -- can do about it.
In the end, though, more than anything else Run is about family, and the infinitely surprising ways in which families can intersect with each other. Patchett has populated the novel with an uncommonly interesting and attractive group of people: Doyle, at once sentimental and tough, generous and willful; Tip, purposeful and uncompromising; Teddy, warm-hearted and kind. I found myself especially drawn to Kenya, a preternaturally gifted runner blessed with "strength, grace, concentration," and to Sullivan, irreverent and idiosyncratic, the prodigal son who reappears unexpectedly and, despite his father's suspicions and doubts, provides his own kind of strength in a time of change and uncertainty.
To the novel's many strengths, one last must be noted. Endings in novels aren't easy and sometimes really don't matter, since in the reader's mind the characters keep right on living, but Patchett has given this one an ending that is just about perfect. Certainly it felt that way to me as I quite reluctantly reached the final page.
Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Run
By Ann PatchettHarperCollins
Copyright © 2007 Ann PatchettAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-06-134063-5
Chapter One
Bernadette had been dead two weeks when her sisters showed up in Doyle's living room asking for the statue back. They had no legal claim to it, of course, she never would have thought of leaving it to them, but the statue had been in their family for four generations, passing down a maternal line from mother to daughter, and it was their intention to hold with tradition. Bernadette had no daughters. In every generation there had been an uncomfortable moment when the mother had to choose between her children as there was only one statue and these Irish Catholic families were large. The rule in the past had always been to give it to the girl who most resembled the statue, and among Bernadette and her siblings, not that the boys ever had a chance, Bernadette was the clear winner: iron rust hair, dark blue eyes, a long, narrow nose. It was frankly unnerving at times how much the carving looked like Bernadette, as if she had at some point modeled in a blue robe with a halo stuck to the back of her head."I can't give it to you," Doyle said. "It's in the little boys' room, on the dresser. Tip and Teddy say a prayer to it at night." He kept his eyes on them steadily. He waited for an apology, some indication of backing down, but instead they just kept staring right at him. He tried again. "They believe it's actually a statue of her."
"But since we have daughters," Serena said, she was the older of the two, "and the statue always passes on to a daughter-" She didn't finish her thought because she felt the point had been made. She meant to handle things gracefully.
Doyle was tired. His grief was so fresh he hadn't begun to see the worst of it yet. He was still expecting his wife to come down the stairs and ask him if he felt like splitting an orange. "It has in the past but it isn't a law. It can go to a son for one generation and everyone will survive."
They looked at each other. These two women, these aunts, had supported their now dead sister in her limitless quest for children but they knew that Doyle didn't mean for the family's one heirloom to pass to Sullivan, his oldest son. He meant for the statue to go to the other ones, the "little boys" as everyone called them. And why should two adopted sons, two black adopted sons, own the statue that was meant to be passed down from redheaded mother to redheaded daughter?
"Because," Doyle said, "I own it now and so I'm the one who gets to decide. Bernadette's children are as entitled to their family legacy as any other Sullivan cousin." Bernadette had always predicted that without a daughter there was going to be trouble. Two of the boys would have to be hurt someday when it was given to the third. Still, Bernadette had never imagined this.
The aunts did their best to exercise decorum. They loved their sister, they grieved for her, but they weren't about to walk away from that to which they were entitled. Their next stop was to seek the intervention of their uncle. As both a priest and a Sullivan they thought he would see the need to keep the statue in their line, but much to their surprise, Father John Sullivan came down firmly on Doyle's side, chastising his nieces for even suggesting that Teddy and Tip should be forced to give up this likeness of their mother, having just given up Bernadette herself. If he hadn't closed the argument down then, chances are that none of the Sullivans would have ever spoken to any of the Doyles again.
It was a very pretty statue as those things go, maybe a foot and a half high, carved from rosewood and painted with such a delicate hand that many generations later her cheeks still bore the high, translucent flush of a girl startled by a compliment. Likenesses of the Mother of God abounded in the world and in Boston they were doubled, but everyone who saw this statue agreed that it possessed a certain inestimable loveliness that set it far apart. It was more than just the attention to detail-the tiny stars carved around the base that earth sat on, the gentle drape of her sapphire cloak-it was Mary's youth, how she hovered on the line between mother and child. It was the fact that this particular Mother of God was herself an Irish girl who wore nothing on her head but a thin wooden disc the size of a silver dollar and leafed in gold.
Bernadette's mother had given her the statue for a wedding present, and it wasn't until they were home from their wedding trip to Maine and were putting things away in their overlarge house on Union Park that Doyle really stopped to look at what was now theirs. He got very close to it then and peered at the face for a long time. He reached a conclusion that he thought was original to him. "This thing really looks like you," he said.
"I know," Bernadette said. "That's why I got it."
Doyle had certainly seen the statue in her parents' house, but he had never gone right up to it before. His did not have the kind of faith that believed religious statuary was appropriate for living rooms, and now here it was in his own living room, staring down at them from the mantel. He mentioned this to Bernadette. In that bright empty room there was no place else to rest your eyes. The Virgin looked so much larger, holier, than she had in the clutter of her parents' house.
"You don't think it's a bit overtly Catholic?" her young husband asked.
Bernadette cocked her head and tried to divorce herself from her history. She tried to see it as something new. "It's art," she said. "It's me. Pretend that she's naked."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Runby Ann Patchett Copyright © 2007 by Ann Patchett . Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper; 1st edition (September 25, 2007)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0061340634
- ISBN-13 : 978-0061340635
- Item Weight : 1.5 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.12 x 1.09 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #246,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,255 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- #4,769 in Women's Domestic Life Fiction
- #13,976 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Ann Patchett is the author of six novels, including Bel Canto, which won the Orange Prize for Fiction. She writes for the New York Times Magazine, Elle, GQ, the Financial Times, the Paris Review and Vogue. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
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Customers praise the story for its engaging and memorable plotline. They find the writing style easy to read and well-crafted. The family dynamics are described as complex and special. The characters are praised for their vibrant and carefully developed stories. The visual style is described as lovely and lovingly rich. Opinions differ on the interest level, with some finding the concept interesting and the book engaging from the start, while others consider it boring or unrealistic.
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Customers enjoyed the storyline and characters. They found the book enjoyable, with an interesting premise and a message of hope, love, and acceptance.
"...Set within a time-frame of twenty-four hours, Ann Patchett's stunning new novel Run, explores the ramifications this car accident has on all their..." Read more
"...It is a great story involvng a statue handed down to the lovely saintly Bernadette, who is married to Doyle the want-to-be famous politican...." Read more
"This is a novel with excellent characters, a driving plot and I enjoyed it." Read more
"...These obsessions, closely held secrets, and magical realism, through which some of the secrets are revealed to the reader, keep the book from being..." Read more
Customers find the writing style detailed and easy to read. They appreciate the author's skill with words and find the book engaging.
"...But the lessons are real and beautifully told. Highly recommended." Read more
"...She is a great writer and story teller!" Read more
"...same deep insight into humanity that Patchett shares with other great writers, and builds to a conclusion that left me teary-eyed on the final page,..." Read more
"...Run" contains some good imagery, and Patchett is a capable writer, but there were also instances where her writing becomes too pedantic...." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's family dynamics. They find the underlying love of a complicated family special. The story explores relationships, community, politics, and the impact of traumatic events. Customers appreciate the character study and thought-provoking cultural aspects of the book.
"...Wonderful also are the glorious forays into experience that Patchett pens -- experiences like that of Kenya running. "..." Read more
"...All of these relationships fit too neatly into place. I did love the names of the characters: Sullivan, Tip, Kenya and Tennessee...." Read more
"...She established her conflict quickly, leading seamlessly into her characters' pasts through inventive technique as she nudged the plot forward ever..." Read more
"...These obsessions, closely held secrets, and magical realism, through which some of the secrets are revealed to the reader, keep the book from being..." Read more
Customers appreciate the vibrant and well-developed characters. They find the story representative of the times and the conflict seamlessly leads into the characters' pasts through an inventive technique.
"...I did love the names of the characters: Sullivan, Tip, Kenya and Tennessee...." Read more
"This is a novel with excellent characters, a driving plot and I enjoyed it." Read more
"...She established her conflict quickly, leading seamlessly into her characters' pasts through inventive technique as she nudged the plot forward ever..." Read more
"...Each character's story is developed carefully; that choice on the author's part slows the "action," but the characters' stories gradually disclose..." Read more
Customers find the book's visual style engaging. They appreciate the lovingly rich and warm depictions that make them feel like they could have actually occurred. Readers praise the author's style, intelligence, and humanity. They describe the book as a work of art with heartfelt moments and surprises.
"...It is a great story involvng a statue handed down to the lovely saintly Bernadette, who is married to Doyle the want-to-be famous politican...." Read more
"...Run" contains some good imagery, and Patchett is a capable writer, but there were also instances where her writing becomes too pedantic...." Read more
"...It is a gift to be able to create a story so compelling and lovely, with details that paint such pictures of the people and the places where the..." Read more
"I love Ann Patchett. Bel Canto was a masterpiece and I read this book because of her, not because the description sounded interesting...." Read more
Customers have mixed reviews about the book. Some find the concept interesting, with vivid characters and a well-told story that keeps them engaged from the first page. They appreciate the complexities of the story, which focuses on family, religion, politics, and urgency. However, others feel the book is boring and dull, with unrealistic characters and uninteresting minutiae.
"...Run" is filled with complexities, focusing on family, religion, politics, and relationships in general...." Read more
"...Didn't really provide any new insights. Found myself pushing to finish." Read more
"...out the novel, which is suitable for teens with its refreshing lack of inoffensive material...." Read more
"...leave a lasting impression, giving you: heartfelt moments, visuals, surprises or wisdom that you carry forward...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the pacing. Some find it great and moving, with a wonderful story that weaves together characters in a way that makes them feel you know them. They appreciate the clear connection of themes and how everything comes together at the end. However, others feel the plot is slow-paced and dull.
"...There are many losses in this book, but it is moving rather than sad. The family becomes closer through the course of the book...." Read more
"...There are a couple of surprises but too many slow parts that made you want to skim over it. Its not a terrible book to read, just not a great one IMO" Read more
"It is about families we make in all sorts of ways, the bonds that change over time and those that hold fast throughout a lifetime...." Read more
"...This is a slow-moving and underwhelming plot compared to Bel Canto, but it can be really appreciated if you take it character by character and focus..." Read more
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2007When Bernard Doyle's beloved young wife Bernadette dies unexpectedly, he assumes the role of both nourishing mother and loving father to his three sons. He dreams of a life in politics for the two youngest, whom he and Bernadette adopted the year before she died. They are black, bright and well-loved but neither Tip nor Terry are interested in politics. They've dutifully attended every political speech and rally to which he took them but their hearts are elsewhere. Terry wants to serve his beloved Catholic Church like his revered and aging uncle Father Sullivan. Tip, a Harvard ichthyologist, prefers to study fish and keeps his heart to himself. Sullivan, Doyle's wayward natural son is another matter. Sullivan doesn't know what he wants. Having managed to inadvertently destroy his father's career in politics, he disappears for years in Africa on a medical mission to distribute anti-retroviral drugs to combat AIDs.
One snowy night in December the Doyle's comparatively safe and comfortable lives explode. Tip, arguing with his father about his own dreams, fails to notice an approaching car and steps backwards into the street. The woman who hurls him aside to safety takes the full impact of the Chevy Tahoe bearing down on him. With her is her eleven-year-old daughter Kenya who screams in anguish and rushes to her mother's side. While the Doyle's wait with Kenya in the hospital for news of her mother Tennessee, they learn she has no other family. Learning that Tennessee is out of danger and would have surgery on the morrow, the Doyle's take Kenya home with them for the night and find Sullivan suddenly returned from Africa.
Set within a time-frame of twenty-four hours, Ann Patchett's stunning new novel Run, explores the ramifications this car accident has on all their lives while simultaneously delving beneath the surface events. Patchett's belief that humans are basically good shines throughout Run as she reveals the inner workings of the hearts and minds of her protagonists and shows us the world -- even the terrible frightening world of conflict and tragedy -- as it can be.
Patchett's novels also take us to places where we might never go -- to the world of opera and terrorism in Bel Canto; to the world of magic shows and architecture in The Magician's Assistant; bartending and homeless teens in Taft; Catholic homes for unwed mothers in The Patron Saint of Liars, and an Ichthyology laboratory and four story home in Boston where the Doyle's confront the past.
Wonderful also are the glorious forays into experience that Patchett pens -- experiences like that of Kenya running. "She let herself float forward, every step a leap, her legs stretching out like scissors, opened wide. She was a swimmer, a gymnastics star, she was a superhuman force that sat outside the fundamental law of nature. Gravity did not apply to her . . ." Neither does the gravity of the densely packed 24 hours of Run weigh Patchett's characters down. In defiance of defeat, the events of that night strengthen and free them to become more than they ever were before.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2007I found this new Patchett novel a great page turner but as each part of the plot was unveiled, I lost confidence in the premise. I found it hard to believe that this former Mayor could adopt two black boys and the family never experienced overt prejudice and distrust. It is a great story involvng a statue handed down to the lovely saintly Bernadette, who is married to Doyle the want-to-be famous politican. She dies too young but has three children, one natural and two black adopted brothers, adopting the youngest one first and the older at fourteen months. The latter fact is a clue into the mindset of the real mother. Bernadette is sorely missed by her sons and husband.
The natural child, Sullivan, is an angry son and gives no joy to his family. His background is too vague and even though the reader does understand some of his anger, it doesn't make sense. When the main incident of the story occurs, a car accident which circumvents the death of Tag, one of the black sons, we discover the mother of the brothers and a sister, whom we later find out isn't really the sister. The reaction of the black brothers when discovering their natural mother is too passive. There is a priest Sullivan, also the uncle, who injects strong beliefs into this novel but his healing powers are under scrunity.
All of these relationships fit too neatly into place. I did love the names of the characters: Sullivan, Tip, Kenya and Tennessee. No one is really what he/she seems, except for Kenya, making the novel more interesting but not necessarily realistic.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2024This is a novel with excellent characters, a driving plot and I enjoyed it.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2024‘“Listen to me, Teddy, I’m telling you.” His voice came out in nothing but a whisper. It was a strain to hear it at all over the hiss of the oxygen. “Go as fast as you can now. Run.”’ (p325)
I badly misunderstood the publisher’s official teaser for this novel. I read “keep his children…safe…over a period of twenty-four hours” and mistakenly expected some sort of thriller. I was wary about that: “thriller” doesn’t strike me as Ann Patchett’s sweet spot.
But I’m happy to report I was wrong – this isn’t a thriller in any sense of the word. It’s a deep, fascinating meditation on what it means to be family. The family here is admittedly unique in its own ways (as all families are), but this family is relatable because it’s more ordinary than not. An unexpected and harrowing event triggers reckonings for several characters. But even that singular event, and the reckonings that follow, are on a par with the ordinary experience of all of us.
One big reveal comes very early. But this is Ann Patchett, so there are surprises aplenty throughout the story. There’s at least one deliciously ambiguous, significant throw-away line that dramatically colors the story, and there’s an important secret revealed to readers but withheld completely from the characters for whom it would prove life-changing. In short, this is vintage Patchett, and there’s nothing like vintage Patchett.
Top reviews from other countries
- Mrs S A McKeonReviewed in the United Kingdom on September 6, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful book
What a great story I loved the family so well written Anne Patchett is a good writer this is an early book worth reading great characture
- Tia GormanReviewed in Canada on April 28, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Always a great read
As always a great author, loved the read!
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Ana Zorrilla TorrasReviewed in Spain on January 26, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Run
Maravillosa. Optimista. Me he quedado con las ganas de continuar en la vida de los Doyle y de los Moser
- NicShef❤️ReadingReviewed in Australia on March 30, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Love, kindness and heart...
Ann Patchett is a superb author whose story lines and characters are unique but believable. "Run" was beautifully written, it is an interesting read, but required patience to get through. An absorbing story of a family patched together by circumstances rather than blood, but a family nonetheless. Each members sorrows, weaknesses and needs contribute to the strength of the whole. "Run" is a story about love, raising kids correctly, kindness, and heart. "Run" is well worth reading. The characters stick with you long after the book is finished.
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DK13000Reviewed in France on May 26, 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars Beau roman
Ann Patchett est un auteur que j'apprécie beaucoup. Run est l'un de ses meilleurs romans ! (mais ils sont tous bons, en fait)..