Key themes
- Divorce and its long reach into the next generation
- The stolen story — the writer who takes what doesn't belong to him
- What really happened — and who gets to say
About this book
A stolen kiss at a California christening in 1964 begins the dismantling of two families whose children grow up intertwined across fifty years. Patchett's most personal novel traces what divorce does to children across generations — and how the story of a family becomes the story a novelist tells.
Published in 2016, Commonwealth was Patchett's sixth novel and her most explicitly autobiographical. It received her best critical notices since Bel Canto.
Discussion questions
- The novel begins with a christening party and a kiss that sets two families on new courses. How does Patchett develop this originating moment across fifty years?
- The writer Leon Posen publishes a novel based on the children's experiences. How does Patchett develop the ethics of this appropriation — and what is she saying about the relationship between lived experience and fiction?
- The novel is told in a deliberately unconventional order — moving through time non-linearly. How does this structure serve the story?
- Patchett has said the novel draws on her own family. What does semi-autobiographical fiction give a writer — and what does the fictional frame protect?
- Commonwealth is Patchett's most personal novel. How does it compare to Bel Canto — and what is she consistently working through across her fiction?
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