Amy P. Knight

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

When I finished this, the first thing I thought is that I need to read it again. It’s layered, and its control of information is masterful. She manages to create suspense about what exactly happened in a past moment, even though many of the narrating characters were there, and she reveals it in a way that never feels like cheating to me. (cf. the finale of Breaking Bad. That was cheating.)

It has thematic echoes of LaRose, in the intermeshed families, and Atonement in the terrible things done in childhood without ill will. There are a lot of important characters and perhaps not all of them needed voices–but it still emerged as coherently Franny’s novel.