Synopses & Reviews
Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving, possessive, and ambitious father. As the former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see his sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his children all his children safe.
Set over a period of twenty-four hours, Run takes us from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard to a home for retired Catholic priests in downtown Boston. It shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from each other, and how family can include people you've never even met. As in her bestselling novel Bel Canto, Ann Patchett illustrates the humanity that connects disparate lives, weaving several stories into one surprising and endlessly moving narrative.
Suspenseful and stunningly executed, Run is ultimately a novel about secrets, duty, responsibility, and the lengths we will go to protect our children.
Review
"[L]uminous....In extraordinarily fluid prose, Patchett unfolds this story to its epiloguelike final chapter as she illuminates issues of race, religion, duty, and desire." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"[E]ngrossing and enjoyable....The somewhat unusual premise is presented very matter-of-factly; this is not a story about race but about family and the depths of parents' love of their children...and of each other. Recommended." Library Journal
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"A family-of-man fable that reads a little too pat to ring true....Compelling story but thematically heavy-handed." Kirkus Reviews
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"Ms. Patchett gives her readers much to contemplate when genetics, privilege, opportunity and nurture come into play. And to her credit she is neither vague nor reductive about any of these things; she creates a genuinely rich landscape of human possibility." Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Review
"Ann Patchett is capable of lovely work, but there isn't a believable moment in this inert novel....The loopy plot is so contrived it's hard to know what you want for these characters. It's even harder to care. (Grade: C)" Entertainment Weekly
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"Patchett's finest work....Run is dazzling from the start; it wastes no time getting revved up....Run is a mature work, a book that feels effortlessly wrought. It is also an affirming book, and Lord knows, we could use a few more of those." Chicago Tribune
Review
"Run is a graceful, deceptively straightforward novel, seeming as effortless as Kenya unfolding her legs on a city street. And yet it manages to deliver a story about race, attachment, and sacrifice. Nothing easy about that." Boston Globe
Review
"Like Anne Tyler, Ann Patchett explores big questions without pretentiousness. Her quirky characters speak offbeat but believable dialogue. Miraculously, despite the coincidences of the plot, Run rings true." Cleveland Plain Dealer
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"What felt effortless in Bel Canto...is schematic and all too precious in Run....It's easy to become sarcastic about Run, which is a shame, because it's filled with lovely intentions and a few truly moving passages." USA Today
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"Patchett is a virtuoso storyteller, with an ability to create characters we can innately understand. Run is as strong and heartfelt a tale as her other works. It is funny and touching and troubling, ending like a good sermon in redemption and hope." Chicago Sun-Times
Review
"It's difficult to understand why an author would seed her story with potentially rich material only to refrain from exploring it. But this might explain why Patchett's characters ultimately feel less real than symbolic, as wooden as the Virgin's statue." Leah Hager Cohen, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Patchett's efforts to depict the triumph of family in a dysfunctional world carry all the emotional heft of a Lifetime TV movie. This is fiction for people who live with their blinders on." The Philadelphia Inquirer
Synopsis
Set over a period of twenty-four hours, Run shows students how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from each other, and how family can include people you've never even met. Ann Patchett illustrates the humanity that connects disparate lives, weaving several stories into one surprising and endlessly moving narrative.
" E]ngaging, surprising, provocative and moving. . . . A thoroughly intelligent book, an intimate domestic drama that nonetheless deals with big issues touching us all: religion, race, class, politics and, above all else, family."-Washington Post
Synopsis
"Engaging, surprising, provocative and moving...a thoroughly intelligent book, an intimate domestic drama that nonetheless deals with big issues touching us all: religion, race, class, politics and, above all else, family." -- Washington Post
From New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett comes an engrossing story of one family on one fateful night in Boston where secrets are unlocked and new bonds are formed.
Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving possessive and ambitions father. As the former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see is sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his children--all his children--safe.
Set over a period of twenty-four hours, Run takes us from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard to a home for retired Catholic Priests in downtown Boston. It shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from each other, and how family can include people you've never even met. As an in her bestselling novel, Bel Canto, Ann Patchett illustrates the humanity that connects disparate lives, weaving several stories into one surprising and endlessly moving narrative. Suspenseful and stunningly executed, Run is ultimately a novel about secrets, duty, responsibility, and the lengths we will go to protect our children.
Synopsis
The highly anticipated new novel from the bestselling author of Bel Canto is an engrossing story of a fateful night and day that will change everything for one Boston family. At its center, Run is about what defines family and the lengths to which we will go to protect our children.
About the Author
Ann Patchett is the author of four novels: The Patron Saint of Liars, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; Taft, which won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize; The Magician's Assistant, for which she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship; and Bel Canto, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award, England's Orange Prize, the Book Sense Book of the Year Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. It has been translated into thirty languages. Her nonfiction book, Truth & Beauty, was a New York Times bestseller and the winner of a Books for a Better Life Award. Patchett has written for many publications, including the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Magazine, Gourmet, the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, and the Washington Post. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.