Part of Patchett’s design is to curve every type, bend every cliche, adulterate every formula. Independence or collectivity: the great question America never answers.Īlthough it is uneasily united, often divisive and rancorous, the newly formed Keating-Cousins family never reduces to mere national allegory, however. So “commonwealth” is a loaded, even paradoxical term in the United States, one that might variously denote sharing prosperity, mutual greed or serving the greater good unity with the body politic or autonomy from it. But America itself is also a commonwealth: a republic in which everyone has a collective interest, and an equal voice. Virginia was the home of both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and thus also the birthplace of the declaration of independence it is as symbolic as Massachusetts (by no coincidence another commonwealth).
America’s various founding narratives often invoke the idea of commonwealth in Virginia, the word is used to suggest the state’s autonomous and original national role, its prehistory as the earliest colony. The story primarily shifts between California, the state that most symbolises the American dream, and Virginia, one of America’s four designated “commonwealth” states.
But the word “commonwealth” also flies like a flag over this book, suggesting a broader field of vision. The impact of that novel, and the secrets it reveals, spin the threads Patchett uses to stitch together the stories of 10 people: the six Keating-Cousins children and their four parents.Īll of this will make Commonwealth sound like a domestic novel, and it is – one of the finest in recent memory, which is reason enough to admire it. The stories she tells him of her childhood sow the seeds for his bestselling comeback, also entitled “Commonwealth”. In her 20s, Franny Keating begins a relationship with the renowned novelist Leon Posen, a much older man in desperate need of inspiration for a new book. Eventually Bert and Beverly leave their spouses, marry and move to Virginia, where their six children come together each summer.Ĭommonwealth crosscuts between the lives of the Keating and Cousins families over the next five decades, as tragedy strikes and life unfolds. Handsome Bert kisses beautiful Beverly, sparking an affair that splits and reconfigures their families. With the help of Bert’s gin, everyone gets drunk and many lives are changed. They barely know each other, but Bert wants an excuse to escape a home with three small children and a pregnant wife.
Bert Cousins is a lawyer in the Los Angeles district attorney’s office Fix Keating is a local cop. An unexpected guest turns up, with a large bottle of gin in lieu of an invitation. A nn Patchett’s seventh novel begins in the early 1960s, at Beverly and Fix Keating’s christening party for their daughter Franny.
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