These Precious Days: Essays by Ann PatchettMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
"People want you to want what they want. If you want the same things they want, their want is validated. If you don't want the same things, your lack of wanting can, to certain people, come across as judgement." (143).
This is just one of many tremendous insights (this one from "There Are No Children Here") tucked into this marvelous series of essays. Patchett writes with honesty that is neither brutal nor saccharine in its emotion. From "Three Fathers", where Patchett narrates navigating paternal relationships with her mother's three husbands, to "Flight Plan", where she articulates so beautifully the relationship between fear, love, and anger, these essays are as intimate as they are universal in the way they express multifaceted humanity. Patchett makes us want to look more deeply at our own lives, whether it is the mundane stuff we decided to keep or toss ("My Year of No Shopping", "The Nightstand"), or the relationships that just happen, redirecting our lives in ways we don't anticipate. It is this last area where Patchett's writing shines the most. The title essay, "These Precious Days" is the longest essay and tells the story of Patchett's friend Sooki, whom she first met as Tom Hanks's assistant. Much as she often does in her fiction, it is the conversations and the small moments that draw us in, rather than the rhetorical denouements and anticipated endings so common in narratives. The essays are best read in order, capturing what at first glance seems a whimsical curation of musings and soon reveals itself to be a carefully crafted meditation on exactly these (or this) precious days. Fans of Patchett's fiction will find several of these essays particularly enriching, both in providing some back story (particularly about The Dutch House) and illuminating the author's process, devotion to her craft, and relationship with life itself.
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