This is the Story of a Happy Marriage

Summary (from the publisher): Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of  Wonder, Run, and Bel Canto, examines her deepest commitments—to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband—creating a resonant portrait of a life in This is the Story of a Happy Marriage.

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage takes us into the very real world of Ann Patchett’s life. Stretching from her childhood to the present day, from a disastrous early marriage to a later happy one, it covers a multitude of topics, including relationships with family and friends, and charts the hard work and joy of writing, and the unexpected thrill of opening a bookstore.

As she shares stories of the people, places, ideals, and art to which she has remained indelibly committed, Ann Patchett brings into focus the large experiences and small moments that have shaped her as a daughter, wife, and writer.

Review: I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from HarperCollins.

I've read one of Ann Patchett's novels, Bel Canto, and her first memoir, Truth and Beauty, and know her to be someone capable of both smart and beautiful writing, so I was naturally excited for the chance to read her latest memoir, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. The title led me to believe that this would largely focus on her marital relationship, but instead this is a very personal look at the mainstays of Patchett's life, the people and things that make her who she is: her writing, her marriages, her family, her dog. Rather than a continuous work, it is a collection of short essays that were mostly published elsewhere first including in the Atlantic Monthly, New York Times, Vogue, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post Magazine, and others. 

Patchett's intro to the book entitled "Nonfiction, an Introduction" does a great job of tying all the essays of the novel together, and give background on her own life and her history of writing articles to make a living for, as she says, "The tricky thing about being a writer, or about being any kind of artist, is that in addition to making art you also have to make a living. My short stories and novels have always filled my life with meaning, but at least in the first decade of my career, they were no more capable of supporting me than my dog was" (1). So I suppose we have the slow take off of her fiction to thank for this wonderful collection of essays written over the years, that perfectly illustrate who Ann Patchett is and what she lives for.

Although I'm not a writer myself, I especially loved the portions of this book to describe her process of writing and her own advice to other writers (i.e. don't go into debt to get a MFA). In the same way that I was captivated by Annie Dillard's description of her own writing process in The Writing Life, I loved hearing Patchett's version of events: "Imagine running over a butterfly with an SUV. Everything that was beautiful about this living thing - all the color, the light and movement - is gone. What I'm left with is the dry husk of my friend, the broken body chipped, dismantled, and poorly reassembled. Dead. That's my book" (25). I was also struck by her ability to distance herself from her books and recognize that, in the end, they are what the reader makes of them. "Chances are I can explain, in the course of a Q&A, my novel's dissatisfying ending or my character's cloudy motivations, but who's to say I'm right? Once the book is written, its value is for the reader to decide, not for me to explain" (168). 

But in addition to her writing revelations, I was enamored by the person Patchett appears to be, someone who cares for her grandmother until the end of her life, who reunited with the nun who taught her grade school and was her arch enemy and ends up caring for her in her old age, how she isn't afraid to also reveal her faults - the mistakes that led to the end of her first marriage, how she conned a little girl into giving her the puppy that became her beloved dog Rose. Patchett is wise about love - "Sometimes love does not have the most honorable beginnings, and the endings, the endings will break you in half. It's everything in between we live for" (284).

I was impressed by Patchett's ability to convey herself and her life's passions into the written word. And to do so in a way that does not come across as self-indulgent or cliche. Instead she sounds like a flawed individual who is learning from her mistakes and wants to share both her triumphs and defeats with the reader in a very honest, direct way.

Stars: 5