Run
by Ann Patchett
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Book Reviews of Run
Book Review: Subtle, touching, profound
Summary: 5 Stars
The surprising crypto-chief character in "Run" by Ann Pachett is the Joe Kennedy-like figure named Bernard Doyle. He is the driving force behind virtually every scene and plot element.
Sharing top billing, is the chief "runner" in the novel, an eleven-year-old black girl named Kenya (like the country). Not so strange, since her mother is Tennessee (like the state). Kenya is as fleet as the night, or the day (take your pick).
Kenya and Tennessee are the invisibles in the book. They are there all right, central and prominent, but the others simply and habitually don't see them. The others are blind to them. But the two invisibles sure have spent their lifetimes watching, listening, and evaluating the others. It's the old story -- blacks and whites, told in a new and confounding way. Who's black, who's white? What difference does it make? Does it in fact make a difference? All this in the confines of a single, eventually extended, family.
Tennessee is a great name for the mother. The book won't bore you with any of the historical facts, but I'll quickly recount a few: Tennessee was the state last to leave the Union to join the Confederacy, and the first to return after the war. More Tennessee soldiers than from any other state served in the Confederate Army, and conversely more Tennesseans served in the Union Army than from any other Southern state. In Tennessee you find the beginnings of the Ku Klux Klan and the murder in Memphis of Martin Luther King Jr.
In my reading, Tennessee the mother is the embodiment of all this history. She is intelligent, hungry for knowledge, politically inspired, humble, and utterly devoted to the physical and intellectual betterment of her given-away sons and of her beautiful and up-and-coming young daughter Kenya. There are parallels to Africa in Kenya's attractive character, but I'll leave this appreciation to the readers.
I have to confess that I had heard about this book a couple of years ago and didn't want any part of it: a white politician and his wife adopt two black sons. I am sick and tired, I said, of having my consciousness and sensitivities raised. I am sick of it and don't want to hear it any more.
But I was hankering for something really good to read, so I walked into a Borders outlet in one of the malls, and I specifically said to the clerk, "I loved Ann Patchett's `Bel Canto' and anything by Sue Miller, but I want to avoid whoever's book it was about the white politician adopting two black sons." She told me I was "safe" with "Run" and with "The Senator's Wife." Boy was she wrong, and boy was I wrong! For "Run" is another masterpiece by Patchett.
Back to Doyle, the chief character. He was the mayor of Boston when he and his wife Bernadette found that they could not have any more children after their first, named Sullivan. Bernadette badly wanted more, so along came one black boy, plainly named Tip. He became available, and soon after that, his infant baby brother, Teddy. The mother, Tennessee, did not want to split the boys up, so the Doyles eagerly and joyfully adopted them both. Later Kenya came into Tennessee's life. In the book, the two sons, Tip and Teddy are twenty-one and twenty to Kenya's eleven. The two sons are of advantage, living in the Doyles' nice house, having the best schools. And Kenya, the daughter from the projects, has this amazing talent to run and run and run, for miles and miles, and fast.
Doyle's first son, Sullivan, is responsible for a tragic car accident that kills his girlfriend Natalie. The scandal of the accident, along with adopting two black sons, spell the end of Doyle in Boston politics. So, like Joe Kennedy, Doyle grooms his sons to enter politics in his place, but without success.
Another horrific and heroic accident in a blinding snowstorm slams all the principals together: Doyle, Tip, Teddy, Sullivan, Tennessee, and Kenya. A wrenching tale told with the greatest subtlety and refinement. As I said before, who's black, who's white, what difference does it make?
And in a scientific and secular world, where do faith and the church fit in? Father Sullivan, a family uncle for whom Doyle's son Sullivan was named, is a living answer with profound insights.
"Run" is a deeply touching tale, not to be missed. Pachett is a master writer. Outstanding.
Book Review: RUN To Get this Book
Summary: 5 Stars
While I have read many excellent books this year, few (if any) have resonated with me the way that this book did. While Ann Patchett presents her story in a straightforward easy to read style, each plot twist, each character, each paragraph is thick with meaning and insight.
The book describes a 24-hour period in the life of the Doyle "family" (quotes conveying the extended nature of the family), and the experiences that ensue when Tip, the black adopted middle son of white, Irish, former Boston mayor, Bernard Doyle, is saved from an oncoming hit and run (at the sacrifice of life and limb) by his theretofore unknown biological mother.
The author uses this event as the jumping off point for the exploration of family. The Doyle family consists of Bernard Doyle, his now deceased wife, Bernadette, his two adopted black sons, the aforementioned Tip and Teddy (named for two famous Massachusetts politicians), Doyle's biological son, nere-do-well Sullivan, and the dead mother's uncle, Father Sullivan. The family of the sacrificing biological mother, Tennessee Moser, consists of Tennessee, Kenya, her talented, intelligent, intuitive 11-year old daughter (and presumably Tip and Teddy's sister), and a largely unnamed friend (who comes to play a small, but crucial role later in the tale).
Ann Patchett does an extraordinary job of raising many compelling questions on the nature of family and the roles of the persons who comprise it. The following are some of the issues that caught my attention:
1. The author's message seems to be that a "family" is more a collection of persons who elect to view and treat themselves as such, rather than a relation based on blood or common ancestry. The book begins with a tale (a fable?) of a statue (a startling likeness of the now dead Bernadette) that gets passed down through the generations. Which "family member" ends up with the statue supports this view.
2. I was particularly interested in the presentation of the tension between the duties of a member of a family and the individual's desire to following his own interests and path. The elder Doyle desperately wanted his sons to adopt his social conscience and enter politics, while the studious Tip preferred the solitude of the ichthyology (fish) lab, and the caring Teddy desired to follow the lead of Uncle Sullivan into the priesthood. At one point, Tip and Kenya end up in his lab filled with fish specimens in glass jars, and he is so moved by the interest she shows in the specimens and Tip's knowledge--drawing a stark contrast from his father's lack of interest.
3. Tennessee, the boys' biological mother who gave them up, spent the last 20 years living as an unknown, unseen witness to the boys' lives, but always retaining a connection--even though they didn't know it. Passing them in the street, seeing them in restaurants and theaters, looking through their windows when they passed the house, knowing their interests and career paths, without them ever noticing. Honestly, this description gave me a chill. Tennessee relates to one instance when she almost touched Tip in a crowd, and even discusses feeling electricity when touching him for the brief moment necessary to push him away from the oncoming car. To have that much love and connection with someone who doesn't know you exist--even when passing you on the street--is truly a remarkable notion.
4. The books described pattern of familial behavior into which family members permit themselves to fall, and which tend to define the person, but aren't necessarily who or all those family members are as people. In this light, I was fascinated by the scenes involving the nere-do-well son, Sullivan, and his facility in interacting with the distraught Kenya--something the other family members found much more difficult. Sullivan was really much of a person than his family structure permitted, but sadly, even he himself bought into this restrictive definition in defining and comporting himself.
While I could go on, my best recommendation is to RUN and buy/read this truly extraordinary book.
Book Review: Multilayered story that makes a great book to discuss!
Summary: 4 Stars
I read Run with my book club and it was a great book to discuss with a book club as there are so many layers to the story to discuss. The story emphasizes the point that the events in a single day can change your life completely. There are many themes to this book...political issues of race, class and family. It is the kind of book that can take on many perspectives from the readers standpoint. Many of my friends in my book club felt this was a political book, others felt it was more focused on family. I found it to be a blend of the two.
To me, it made me think about the definition of family and what it means to each person can be quite different. Is a family by definition, only those who are related by blood? I think that there is so much more to being a family than shared bloodlines. In this story, a white family (Bernadette, Doyle and Sullivan) adopt two young african american boys, Tip and Teddy. I found it refreshing to read how the issue of race in this family made no difference in their choice of adoption and the way they raised the boys. They loved them unconditionally as if they were their own children by birth. Sadly, Bernadette dies shortly after and this effects them all in many ways. Their biological son, Sullivan, was more effected by the adoption as he was an only child and the focus shifted away from him after the boys were adopted. He also had to deal with the death of his mother and it appears to me that this affected him deeply and changed the course of his life tremendously. There is a theme throughout the book that relates to the importance of motherhood and how that loss can effect a child and family.
There are other characters in the book that make a direct impact to the story as well. Uncle Sullivan, the namesake of the biological son, Sullivan. Who has an intense bond to Teddy. Tennessee Moser a mysterious woman whose quick act of bravery will impact the lives of all of the characters in the story. Kenya is Tennessee's daughter who has an incredible maturity for an 11 year old girl and an olympic size ability to run.
The theme of politics dominates the book as this is the path that the father, has chosen as his role as a past mayor and would like his sons to pursue. He exposes them to many political experiences and speaking events and it is not a path that the boys are interested in pursuing. There was a subtle tie in to current political events with a sign posted in a window that caught my attention when reading the book.
I believe that the title of the book, Run, reflects the idea that all of the characters are running from something. I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't read the book by saying more. I will tell that you should definitely read this book to uncover the meaning behind the title.
Book Review: Easily Ann Patchett's Best
Summary: 5 Stars
Bernadette Sullivan was a beautiful red head when she married Bernard Doyle, a Boston politician destined to become mayor. She brought a hand carved statute of the Madonna into the marriage that had been passed down from mother to daughter in her family. It was supposed to go to her daughter, but her first born was a son, named Sullivan. Years later she and her husband adopted two black children who they treated like their own. When she died, she left her husband to raise the children and had no daughter to give the statue to.
Doyle wants his children to follow him into politics, however his eldest is involved in an accident that forces his father from office. Sullivan leaves the country, leaving Doyle with the two adopted children, Tip and Teddy (both named for famous Boston politicians). Tip yearns for the priesthood, like his uncle, and Teddy becomes an ichthyologist, preferring to study his fish in his Harvard lab, rather than enter the rough and tumble world his father desires for him.
It's snowing in Boston when Sullivan, the prodigal, returns from Africa. Doyle, who has dragged his children to many political speeches throughout their upbringing has taken them to see Jesse Jackson at Harvard. Tip inadvertently backs into the path of an oncoming car and Tennessee Moser, an elderly black lady, jumps from the crowd, pushes Tip to safety and is struck by the vehicle. She'd been attending the speech with her eleven-year-old daughter, Kenya.
Tennessee is Tip and Teddy's birth mother and she'd been following the boy's progress as they grew up, dragging Kenya along with her when she'd spy on them. Kenya tells the Doyle family this and they take her in while they wait for news from the hospital about her mother. And there you have the beginning of this tightly woven novel that kept me entranced throughout. I loved Bel Canto, thought Ms. Patchett could never top it. She has.
Kenya, an eleven-year-old speedster on the track, is a character who will steal your heart away. I found a bit of my father in the ex-mayor and maybe a bit of the old guy in Father Sullivan as well. The boys, Tip and Teddy seemed as real to me as flesh and blood, but of them all, I loved Sullivan, the black sheep, the best. And who does the Madonna go to? Well that's the heart of the book, don'tcha know.
Book Review: Like oatmeal for breakfast
Summary: 3 Stars
As I struggled through the last 50 pages or so, I sensed that Ms. Patchett had also struggled to wrap up the last details of "Run". When you're constantly measuring the thickness of the remaining pages of a book it's never a good sign. Like checking your watch two-thirds of the way through a movie. There are some potentially interesting themes on: religion, race, politics, families, and life choices but none are ever explored in enough detail to make an impression. And some topics, such as universal healthcare, were a bit too heavy-handed.
"Run" contains some good imagery, and Patchett is a capable writer, but there were also instances where her writing becomes too pedantic. In one example, she describes the pain of using crutches and launches into a Gray's Anatomy discourse of radial and ulnar nerves that actually took me out of the situation rather than pulling me in.
She shifts character perspective in creative ways. But ultimately the book failed to extend meaningful connections with the characters for me. Tip, Teddy, Kenya, Tennessee, Da (a nickname I cringed at), Sullivan, and Uncle What's-His-Name - I didn't find any of them particularly compelling and engaging.
The big money shot happens early in the book and opportunities for giving the reader an epiphany later on are squandered. The outcome is well telegraphed as the reader is rotated through the same handful of sets: the hospital, Doyle's house, and the Harvard campus.
Some books leave a lasting impression, giving you: heartfelt moments, visuals, surprises or wisdom that you carry forward. Other books you read are a diversion, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle or doing a crossword. Like oatmeal for breakfast, they fill the gap but don't surprise and delight, and you don't find yourself misty-eyed, pining for more as you close the back cover. For me, "Run" was the latter.