This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

Sometimes love does not have the most honorable beginnings, and the endings, the endings will break you in half. It's everything in between we live for. This was my first encounter with Ann Patchett and her writing and I must say I'm thoroughly impressed. In reading this collection I've realized that there are so many authors whose works I love but whom I do not know at all. The only other book I can think of that provided such a window into the author's soul was Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle. Though Walls wrote a memoir and Patchett put together some of her favorite articles and essays she's written over the years, both are candid, funny (at times), heartbreaking (at times), and so very unapologetically honest. My favorite stories/entries were the ones about Rose, Ann's unique relationship with Karl, and the one about Ann's 'work' vacation at the Hotel Bel-Air. There is no doubt in my mind, now that I know I adore and admire this author as a person, that I will read her works of fiction in the near future. For more bookish photos, reviews and updates follow me on instagram @concerningnovels.

Ann rocks!! I really enjoyed this book, and really really want to go and hang out with Ann and have her tell me more stories. These essays are so well put together and they are beautiful together as a whole piece. Some stories did it more for me than others, and I was especially fond of Ann's stories about her dad and training for the LAPD, her relationship with her husband Karl, her dog Rose (TISSUES!), the story of her bookstore, and some of her shorter pieces like the piece on Tennessee and the story about the flood in Nashville. So basically I liked everything. I will say that as a reader and badly-out-of-practice writer, The Getaway Car actually wasn't one of my favorite stories in this collection; I've found myself way more attached to memoirs on writing such as Bird By Bird (Annie Lamott) and On Writing (Stephen King), but that's just me. Go do yourself a favor and read this with a happy glass of wine (or three)!

I honestly have not read any of Ann Patchett's work (for shame, I know) but the mention of her in Elizabeth Gilbert's book Big Magic had me curious. This is a collection of previously published essays for the most part, so while not every section interested me (I had a particularly uncomfortable time with the LAPD one), the writing was always so strong. I definitely will be exploring more of her work, now, because if she can keep me so interested in things that don't interest me, I imagine the fiction is really going to get me.

Hey Ann. So good to meet you. Oh my gosh I am such of fan! Bel Canto is one of my favorites. But, I really knew nothing about you. I don't want to know as much about you as, say, Anne Lamott likes to tell. But I did like seeing your realness. And I met Eudora Welty too and she autographed a book for me and encouraged me to write. There are other similarities but I don't want to creep you out. I've got more reading to do.

Patchett is confident, clear -- a seasoned essayist and novelist. This collection of essays is a satisfying assortment that includes an unsentimental perspective of her happy marriage; an account of trying out for the LAPD that includes her training at the police academy (Patchett's father worked for the LAPD) and what I consider to be one of the finest accounts of becoming a writer I've ever read (and I've read and heard plenty). Aspiring writers take note.

Great collection of essays. Superb writer. My favorite essay was the one on writing, of course.