Book Review: These Precious Days

I'm familiar with Ann Patchett's name. I even purchased a copy of her book, Bel Canto, after reading about it on another book review blog. However, it has remained unopened in my basement for years. It is always interesting how a variety of connections bring you to a particular book. Here, my renewed interest in reading Ann Patchett's work developed through an interview with Kate Di Camillo (a favorite children's author) on a podcast about book recommendations. I finally read one of her books, The Dutch House, two years ago.

I love reading personal essays. Something about getting inside another person's brain and life experiences is very appealing. Plus, often, you glean wisdom about writing. These Precious Days presents a variety of topics, but all of them home in on the gifts of relationship, writing, and reading. She writes about relationships with her three different fathers. I laughed out loud as she described her relationship with her best friend, Tavia. She describes Tavia as a gorgeous and popular girl who draws people like moths to a flame. This was perhaps my favorite passage:

"Boys trailed her like a tail on a kite, discomfited by desire.... As for me, well, I wasn't that girl. Not only did I pale beside her (of course I did, everyone did), but I lacked her buoyancy and ease as well. I was a serious kid. No boys were standing outside my window. 'You were too busy making art,' she tells me, as if boys were kept away by the force field of my poetry, my ceramics."

Too funny! I laugh because I relate! My other favorite essay explains the writing wisdom gleaned from Snoopy. Yes, Snoopy! It is a beautiful piece any writer will enjoy. In it, she shares a hilarious snippet where Snoopy receives an invitation to come out and play. In true rejection letter format, he gives his apologies and ends with, "We hope you will be successful elsewhere." Ha!

She also shares homage essays to Eudora Welty and Kate Di Camillo. Since I love Kate Di Camillo's work (sad to say, not as familiar with Welty), I now intend to remedy the oversight of missing her book called The Magician's Elephant. This is the one Patchett declares her favorite. She writes about coming to provide an endorsement for Tom Hanks' short story collection and then through him, meeting his personal assistant, Sooki. She writes about securing Hanks as the narrator of the audio version of The Dutch House (the way I consumed the book).

The title of this book comes from her interactions with Sooki. A very private woman, Sooki shares a simple statement of her battle with cancer. Patchett, whose husband is a doctor, secures her a spot in local clinical trials and invites her to stay in their home. Ah, the beauty of this example of giving leading to far greater receiving. As is always true, when you open your heart to another, your own heart expands.

Content caution: 📒 - the book explains her father's unheeded suggestions to remove sexual content from her books and also shares an experience with drugs, intended to ease some of Sooki's pain.