Customer Reviews

Run

5 star:		(73)
4 star:		(75)
3 star:		(53)
2 star:		(35)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Run is the latest novel from the pen of Ann Patchett, the acclaimed author of Bel Canto. It is the story of an unusual Boston family. Bernard Doyle is a former Mayor of that city. He is a widower, his wife Bernadette having died of cancer some years before. He has three sons: Sullivan, the eldest and two adopted sons, Tip and Teddy. Tip and Teddy are biological brothers and they are black. It is their story that is most rivetting and provides much of this novel's essence and consequence. For the two young men, 21 and 20 respectively, are profoundly different. Tip is drawn towards science, Teddy towards religion. But there is much more at stake here. Patchett creates a beautifully detailed snapshot of America at the beginning of a new century. And through interactions whose randomness and emotional complexity these characters do not fully comprehend, some powerful and despairing truths regarding race, class, politics and faith are uncovered. Patchett's glistening prose reminds me of a jeweler studying a diamond with steely precision and a cool, clear radiance that reveals every facet and flaw.

Her elegant prose is strongly reminiscent of another writer: James Joyce in his seminal story The Dead, perhaps the finest short story ever written. Even the technique seems similar. Here is spare, limpid prose laying bare the deepest recesses of the human heart. Here are the dead and the absent forever impacting the lives of the living and damaged. It struck me that Patchett has thoroughly absorbed Joyce's technique. This is high praise indeed, but impossible to prove. Or so I thought until Teddy quotes several sentences from the famous ending of The Dead. With some vindication, I think I can safely claim that Ann Patchett has used Joyce as her model. It is an indication of the artistry of this fine writer that she has done so successfully. This is a brilliant novel, filled with truth and deep feeling. Her artistry is quiet, never calling attention to itself. But artistry it is. You won't forget this book. My strongest possible recommendation for Run.

Mike Birman

"Run," a novel about a multi-racial adoptive family whose whole family structure is called into question as a result of an accident on a snowy night, was a quick, enjoyable read, though it definitely is not Patchett's best work. "Run" displays once again, the beauty and skill with with Ann Patchett writes. You can sense that each sentence and phrase is crafted carefully, each word carefully chosen.

Though the writing was beautiful, the plot was slow-moving, a bit cliched, and not always believable. Patchett has great ideas for this book, but perhaps a few too many. She spends time developing a plethora of ideas, but developing each only slightly. Had she focused on only a few select ideas and developed them more, the novel would have felt more finished and believable. The very concept of "run" even felt forced at times, as if she just constantly threw out references to running to tie the loose ends together. And the ending seems to wraps things up just a bit too neatly.

Don't let this discourage you from reading Ann Patchett, however. She is a fantastic author. If you were disappointed with "Run," read "Bel Canto" or "The Magician's Assistant" and experience Patchett at her best.

"His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling; like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." James Joyce 'The Dead'

Ann Patchett has written her sixth book in the framework of a family and how the end justify the means. Each character is a study in love and the affection they have for each other. The gifts that are given by these people to each other is overflowing with meaning.

Doyle, an ex-mayor of Boston had given up his office, voluntarily, but in the realm of disgrace. His profession in politics was his love, and he had hoped that one of his sons would follow in his footsteps. On this cold winter's night he brings his two younger sons, Tip and Teddy to hear Jesse Jackson. Doyle's hope was that Jesse would put the 'fire' of politics in one of his sons. Tip and Teddy had been adopted as infants. Doyle and his wife, Bernadette had one son, Sullivan, and wanted more, and when the chance to adopt a black baby came they grabbed it. They then found his brother, 14 months old was also available, and their family became complete, or almost. Within a short period of time, Bernadette, the love of Doyle's life, became ill with cancer and subsequently died. Doyle was left to bring up the boys on his own.

On this night, Tip who goes to Harvard and is studying Ichthyology finally becomes tired of Doyle pushing his political preference in his face, and he starts an arguement with Doyle. It becomes more heated than either wanted, and Tip turns to go and walks in front of an on-coming car.
He is saved by a black woman who pushes him out of the way. She is injured and rushed to the hospital. Not knowing the extent of her injuries as of yet, Doyle volunteers to care for the woman's young daughter. A full family at best. Now the issues of the past come to haunt the entire family, and some answers must be found. Tip and Teddy must come to terms with their past. And, Doyle must answer to his children.

The life we lead is sometimes not what we think it is. The past may come to haunt us and decisions made for us and before us may not be what we want. Ann Patchett has the ability of taking a simple plot and making it into something it is not. The family and its center is the important aspect of her writing. This book was simplistic in plot, and the message was easy to grasp. It is a good novel, not one of her best, but enjoyable. After 'Bel Canto' the expectations were very high. There is something missing here and the plot though well devised is not as satisfying. But Ann Patchett's writing makes up for any deficit in plot- she is glorious in her use of the written word. Much to be admired.

Recommended. prisrob 08-20-07

Bel Canto (P.S.)

Truth & Beauty: A Friendship

Ann Patchett explores twenty-four hours in the life of an upper middle class Boston family. Bernard Doyle, the former mayor of Boston, has been widowed and the effects of the loss of his wife hover over this story. Sullivan is the prodigal son who returns unexpectedly during a snowstorm, but it is not until the middle of the novel that the reader learns of the scandal that forced him to run to Africa and leave his father disgraced. Tip and Teddy are two African-American boys the Doyles adopted and the father unabashedly tries to lead them into politics. They are dragged to lecture after lecture, and it is after one such outing to hear Jesse Jackson speak that Tip is struck by an SUV. He most likely would have been killed had he not been pushed out of harm's way at the last second by a bystander who calls herself Tennessee. When she is rushed to the hospital, the Doyles are left to care for her eleven-year-old daughter Kenya for the night.

Patchett gives the reader many issues to mull over---race, class, politics--but it is family that cements all the issues she presents, family that binds disparate personalities and makes their essential differences a beautiful blending.

Tip and Teddy are the heart of this story, the two blood brothers bound by shared parentage yet each finding his own path while hoping not to be crushed by the heavy mantel of their father's expectations.

This is a moving story of an intense father, his biological son he is estranged from, his adopted sons in whom he sees his own future, and the young girl who comes unexpectedly and unbidden into their lives. It is a story of family and the secrets we discover and the ones best left hidden.

Run is a delicate, tender, and honest story of two adopted boys, Tip and Teddy, who lost their beloved adopted mother when they were preschoolers, and then are suddenly confronted by their previously unknown birth mother, Tennessee, as college-age adults. Tip and Teddy are opposites: Tip is driven, cold, logical, ambitious. Teddy is loving, outgoing, disorganized, always late. Patchett takes the reader through the mechanisms of confusion, doubt, anger, and mourning these boys feel when confronted with this lost birth mother, and together with their father Doyle they surprise the reader with the coldly practical worry that the boys have been "stalked" all their lives by this silent watcher.

Because Tip and Teddy are black, and their adopted father Doyle is white, the reader may begin the book with expectations of discussions about race, but surprisingly there is very little of this. Instead, the central issue is class. A constant stream of images of Tennessee`s poverty contrast with Doyle, Tip, and Teddy's wealth and social status.

The strength of this book is in its careful and meticulous character development. Doyle, Tip, Teddy, and Kenya (Tennessee's daughter) are very, very real. But Tennessee is the exception here. For most of the book she is unconscious, and the only bits we learn about her are from other characters. But when we finally get to hear from her, when she wakes up hallucinating after surgery, she doesn't ring true. And the extra storyline brought in during the hallucination seems unnecessary, and is not integrated with the rest of the story.

Still, this is a strong and compelling book. Patchett paints a beautiful and expansive picture of family. A family that was at first unfamiliar but became so warm and memorable that I missed them when I had to close the book.

Ann Patchett's latest novel RUN is about the Doyle family and is set in contemporary Boston. Bernard Doyle, a Caucasian in his early 60's, has raised three children alone after the death from cancer of his beloved wife Bernadette: his thirty-four-year-old son Sullivan, the black sheep of the family, and his two adopted black sons who are brothers by birth, Tip who is 21, and Teddy who is a year younger. The Doyles in a noble gesture had adopted two black children so "each brother would keep the other from feeling alien or isolated in this white jungle." The film director (Steven Spielberg made a similar comment when he adopted two black children.) Doyle, the ex-mayor of Boston, hopes that these two sons will have a bright future in politics. Tip, however, is enthralled with ichthyology (the branch of zoology that deals with fish) while Teddy has aspirations of becoming a priest and is the favorite relative of his late mother's uncle, Father Sullivan, a Catholic priest living in a retirement home.

Ms. Patchett certainly tells an interesting life-affirming story; some of the twists are expected, other are not. There are no villains here. Every character to a person is decent including Sullivan, even after you find out how he went astray. To that extent Ms. Patchett reminds me of one of my favorite authors Anne Tyler, whose characters are usually admirable as well albeit often slightly off-center. There are passages beautifully and profoundly written. For example, Father Sullivan, in his 80's and sick with a bad heart, muses on whether there might not be life after this one and concludes that if that is the case, then he "hoped to elevate the present to a state of the divine. It seemed from this moment of repose that God may well have been life itself. . . Life itself had been holy." On his own mortality, his heart wakes him up "to remind him that in life there was never a limitless number of nights." Ms. Patchett has a dozen different ways to describe snow: a "gorgeous sea of sugar-ice," a street is a "snow globe" and packed snow is a "hard white permafrost."

The writer holds up a mirror to those who have all the advantages of a good home, money and education in contrast to familes who live almost in their faces-- in this instance the Doyles of course, but who are invisible to this most fortunate family. Her premise seems to be (something that social scientists have been saving for years) that nurturing and education are more important in whether or not a child becomes a productive member of society, not the color of his skin. Certainly Tip and Teddy have thrived in their adopted family. Your family consists of those persons, regardless of whoever they are, who love and care for you.

But about skin color-- Ms. Patchett never describes in any detail what the black characters in this novel look like. Of course, she doesn't have to; on the other hand, she goes to great lengths in her descriptions of most of the white characters. Bernadette (page 1), for instance, has "iron rust hair, dark blue eyes, a long, narrow nose" and looks for all the world like the statute of Mary that has been in her family for generations. I know precisely what Sullivan looks like, but Tip and Teddy may as well be Caucasian. The writer goes into great detail to tell the reader what kind and color of clothes they are wearing, even down to their shoes; but I have no idea what is the color of their skin, the texture or style of their hair, their eye color and shape, etc. I know simply that they are tall and black. Whether Ms. Patchett does not know how to describe people of another race or she is uncomfortable in doing so-- whatever may be her reason-- this is a major flaw in an otherwise good novel.

I am an admirer of Ann Patchett and two of her previous works; Bel Canto and Patron Saint of Liars. Run contains many thematic similarities to her previous books but manages to approach them from a different perspective. All of Patchetts books present the reader with addictive tales about unusual and troubled characters forced by unexpected circumstances to confront and resolve compelling questions confronting them in their everyday lives.

Run is a story of intersecting destinies; an exquisite family portrait that examines aspects of love, loss, father/son relationships, religion, the black experience, political ethics, social responsibility and finally every child's quest for individual identity and their longing for parental love and approval.

Run is aptly titled since each character in this novel is running, either physically or metaphorically, toward or away from something in their lives.

Patchett's elegant prose and storytelling talent captures the subtle metamorphosis each character undergoes as well as offering the reader powerful insights into familial relationships.

This is a tale that completely involves the reader in the lives of its characters, who feel like family and continued to live on in your memory long after the last page has been turned.

Ann Patchett's 'Run' is the story of love and its effects and of the possibility of second chances. There is the father who loves his sons, but allows his love to blind him to their needs. There is the mother who loves her children almost enough to send them off to a 'better' life. There are the children who love their parents but must learn to juggle parental love and personal identity. And there is the aging priest who loves his god, but loves life even more than he loves god.

These are heavy and universal cords that will strike home for most readers, and, luckily for the reader, Patchett handles them, for the most part, quite well. She weaves an entertaining story of a larger-than-life family.

I confess that I sneaked back out of bed at 1 AM to finish this one in one sitting. I just wish that the characters had been a bit less grand and a bit more like the rest of us.

I recently had the privilege of reading Ann Patchett's "Run;" a book that I would not usually read. The plot has been admirably summarized in other reviews and I would simply direct the reader of this review to those fine reviews for an idea of the plot.

Some of the things I thought Ann Patchett's "Run" did well include:

1. Characterization - Each character was richly developed and their motivations could be easily understood. One of the difficulties pointed out by another reviewer is that "every protagonist in this book has deep and complicated thoughts in every situation - not once can one of them simply "be." (Reviewer - I. Peters). I would be inclined to agree except that I do not accept that any of the characters in the book qualify as "protagonists." When each of the named character could qualify as a "protagonist," then we should look elsewhere. In my opinion, the true protagonist is LIFE and the true antagonist is DEATH. It is LIFE and DEATH which ultimately advance the plot. With LIFE and DEATH, there are no "deep and complicated thoughts;" they are what they are - LIFE and DEATH.

2. Detail and references - Patchett's attention to detail, particularly her descriptions of people and places bring the world she creates alive for the reader. Patchett also makes good use of Charles Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle: Charles Darwin's Journal of Researches (Penguin Classics). She also makes what is (unfortunately) an obscure reference to the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz (A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry)

3. Effective use of compressed time - The plot of the novel is largely set over a 24 hour period. During that time, the characters form attachments which would otherwise be implausible but for Patchett's effective use of compressed time. This is largely accomplished through the use of back story.

Some of the areas I had difficulties with include:

1. Bernard and Bernadette Doyle - I found it initially curious that Patchett named the Doyles "Bernard" and "Bernadette." On the one hand, it conveyed a sense that when "Bernadette" dies while Teddy and Tip are young, "Bernard" became both mother and father to the boys and, thus, the nomenclature was used to convey that fact. I found that it also detracted from the character of "Bernadette" who was otherwise richly developed and not merely a subset of "Bernard."

2. The entirety of Chapter 9 - To say too much about Chapter 9 would result in revealing significant plot spoilers so I will refrain from doing so. In general terms, the difficulty I had with Chapter 9 had to do with differentiating the dialogue between the two speakers. This was most unfortunate because Patchett makes a nice allusion to the concept of "death-in-life and life-in-death" found in W.B. Yeats' poem "Byzantium" (The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats) among other places.

3. The climax in Chapter 10 - To say too much about Chapter 10 would REALLY result in revealing plot spoilers. I will just say that the climax was unfocused, lacked detail and ultimately falls a little flat. It is also noteworthy because it is so unlike the rest of the book.

Ann Patchett's "Run" was a worthwhile read and the 4-star rating is the result of the misstep in the climax.

The first chapter had me hooked!! Ann Patchett is the author of this wonderful story, "Run". Ann has a way of telling a story that makes you able to visualize each and every character. She is so descriptive without overdoing it. I can't even describe how well written I thought this book was!

"Run" is about Bernard Doyle, white, former Mayor of Boston, and his family. Sullivan is Bernard's only natural born child and Tip and Teddy are his adoptive, black sons. The story begins in the past, telling of the loss of Bernard's wife at a young age. We then learn more about Tip - intelligent, logical, Ichthyologist; and Teddy - loving, outgoing, chronically late. None of Bernard's sons are interested in politics, as he had hoped for, but that doesn't stop him from `dragging' them along to all the political events he can, hoping to spark an interest!

Walking away in snow storm after just leaving a speech by Jessie Jackson, Tip decides it's time to tell his dad that he has no interest in attending any more of these events - and he's just not interested in politics. Tip backs right into the way of an oncoming SUV and is pushed to safety by Tennessee Moser (unknown to Tip, his natural mother). Tip suffers minor injuries compared to Tennessee who ends up in the hospital and unconscious. Kenya, Tennessee's young daughter who witnessed the accident, is taken in by the Doyle's. This is just the start of a whole new chapter in both family's lives!

"Run" is so very well written! I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know each character - and it was easy to do with Ann's writing style. I thoroughly recommend this book to all.

- 1smileycat :-)