Ann Patchett, 2021
I’m a bit obsessed with Ann Patchett. I’ve read nearly all of her novels and her two essay collections, and studied The Patron Saint of Liars for my doctoral thesis. Patchett does not have any children and has not hidden the fact that she’s never wanted children, however I haven’t seen any evidence that this fact about her has been studied in regards to her fiction — and it is represented in nearly every book. This is something I explored in my thesis, but I am anxious to expand it further.
In this essay collection, These Precious Days, Patchett discusses her childlessness in “There are no children here.” She shares some appalling (and relatable) instances of people telling her she cannot be a “real” writer until she has children, because only then can she truly understand love. This is an extension of a common remark childless/-free people hear: that they don’t know love unless they have children. I agree completely that loving a child, and probably particularly one’s own procreation, is likely on a different level than the love I know. But to insist that someone does not understand love unless they have a child is preposterous, and cruel if that person can’t have children. Every person who has fallen in love thinks nobody else has ever felt that way before, and I expect a parent’s insistence that this be true is not unlike a 16-year-old in love for the first time. In other words, I can comprehend it even if I don’t feel it. It’s clear from this and other essays that Patchett is an incredibly kind, generous and patient person, and so she manages these conversations with ease and not a hint of the frustration I revealed in just writing about it! She explains her decision like this:
“I have just enough energy to write, keep up with the house, be a decent friend, a decent daughter and sister and wife. Part of not wanting children has always been the certainty that I didn’t have the energy for it, and so I had to make a choice, the choice between children and writing…History offers some examples of people who’ve done a good job with children and writing, I know that, but I wasn’t one of those people. I’ve always known my limitations. I lacked the units of energy, and the energy I had, I wanted to spend on my work. To have a child and neglect her in favor of a novel would be cruel, but to simply skip the child in favor of a novel was to avoid harm altogether. “
Implicit in this passage is the belief that having a child should be a considered choice, and I admire Patchett for explaining her position so completely. She does not owe an explanation to anyone, but there it is.
The longest and title essay is about her later-in-life friendship with a woman named Sooki, who was an assistant to Tom Hanks (you’ll have to read the essay to understand how all those pieces connect). This was a beautiful piece about how these two women found each other and spent their days together during the early part of the pandemic. I often hear readers crying out for more “older” voices and female friendships, and this essay offers both.
“How to Practice” originally appeared in the New Yorker. Patchett explains how she decided to go through all of her belongings and shed those things she no longer needed. In the process, she discovers many things she collected over the years that she thought she would need sometime in the future. Sometimes the realization that she never needed them or never would is a bit sad, but other times she can see how naive she had been. She discovers twelve champagne glasses, brandy snifters and wine glasses: “Who did I think I was going to be next? Scott Fitzgerald? Jay Gatsby? Would I drink champagne while standing in a fountain?…I had miscalculated the tools of adulthood when I was young, or I had miscalculated the kind of adult I would be.”
In short these essays are funny and heartwarming studies on aspects of Patchett’s personal life, but with glimpses of insight that can apply to anyone — like all the best essays. Four stars.
Monica Cardenas 