It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together. Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another. Book Summary Ann Patchett, the New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth and State of Wonder, returns with her most powerful novel to date: a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go. When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them. Summary Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth opens with the christening of Franny Keating, the second daughter of Francis Fix and Beverly Keating. The party becomes wilder than expected once everyone starts drinking. But it prompts the kind of evaluations that books about. The story opens in Southern California at the home of Fix and Beverly Keating, who are having a christening party for their baby girl Franny. Commonwealth is an unassuming book about the life of a family. Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Ann Patchetts new novel, Commonwealth, is full of guns that dont fire. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly-thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.

One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. The acclaimed, bestselling author-winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize-tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families’ lives.

Commonwealth patchett summary