Run
Ann Patchett
Bloomsbury, Rs 595

Ann patchett’s fifth book Run begins with a death. Bernadette, wife of Boston lawyer Bernard Doyle, is dead, and her sisters have come to ask Doyle to return a family heirloom, a statue of the Virgin Mary that is meant to be passed down from one daughter to the next through generations. Bernadette had no daughters, only three sons. The first, Sullivan, is the biological son; the other two, Tip and Teddy, are adopted. But Doyle refuses to return the statue to his dead wife’s sisters, because it is now kept in the little boys’ room and the boys, who think that it is a statue of their dead mother, say a prayer to it every night.

But Bernadette’s sisters aren’t convinced, because, “why should two adopted sons, two black adopted sons, own the statue that was meant to be passed down from redheaded mother to redheaded daughter?” Race, politics, religion, privilege, adoption, single parenting — these are the themes and issues that Patchett takes on in this new book, though not with complete success.

At the heart of this beautifully, almost too beautifully, crafted novel is the story of how the lives of two families intersect in the course of 24 hours. Typical of a Patchett plot, it is difficult to summarise any part of it without giving away the whole. Even though his own political career has ended, Doyle still longs to be part of a meaningful political life in the country at least through his sons. He drags the unwilling Tip and Teddy to listen to a speech by Jesse Jackson. When they emerge from the hall it is snowing. Just as the scholarly Tip is getting into an argument with his father about carrying the added weight of his expectations, he nearly gets run over by an SUV — but a woman passing by on the street manages to push him to safety. The woman, Tennessee Moser, gets hit by the car instead, and gets whisked off to hospital. Her 11-year-old daughter Kenya, with no other place to go, comes home with the Doyles.

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