Ann Patchett is an amazing author. She possesses the ability to create diverse, archetypal characters placed in worlds that you see as clearly as you see the robin flitting about the birdbath in your own backyard. And into that world, she invites you in a way that is hard to describe as anything other than intimate. You, the reader, belong there.
Her genius as a writer is found in her characters. Each handled with such tender affection; and nowhere in her few novels more so than here, in "Run". With each word, with each gesture she reveals their essential humanity in a way that begs the reader to forgive their foibles and embrace their goodness.
As I am reading this book, I savor it a chapter at a time, sometimes reading it twice before moving on. Her words are just that good. And when the prodigal son took the fragile hand of the broken black woman in the hospital room, I cried without shame. It was the same when the diva sang her aria before the Japanese Ambassador in "Bel Canto". Reading Ann Patchett is visceral in a way that few other authors are or have been to me.
The first time a novel had such power was Tolstoy's "Anna Karinina." It was a scene where Vronsky was running along side of Anna's Carriage as it approached her summer dacha. And wham! There I was, out of the blue, running with him and just as filled with a joy so tangible that I was laughing and crying at the same time.
"Run"'s only irony is that I am happy to crawl my way through it. To enjoy every turn of the page, every peeling back of the onion to reveal something more lovely than the layer that came before.
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