I indulged in this collection of Ann Patchett's writing over a snowy weekend in the dead of winter and, I swear, every essay went down like a warm cup of cocoa. Maybe part of the pleasure I derived stems from the fact that the author's background and mine share more in common than I'd ever realized. Reading this book did feel a little like catching up with a dear but long-lost friend, yes. But I also happen to love beautifully crafted and insightful writing with great heart. And this work fully delivered. Patchett is a true artist and, collectively, these essays present a literary mosaic of her life that reads even better than memoir.The cover of this work may mislead you, as The Story of a Happy Marriage is the title of both the book and an included Audible Original piece that Patchett wrote in 2011. Only a few of its 22 essays focus on her relationship with her husband, Karl. The rest center on other significant relationships, aspects, and experiences in her life that she chose to honor in various newspaper and magazine articles and college addresses from 1996 through 2012. And I do mean honor, because what blew me away most about this work is Patchett's remarkable gift for conveying precisely what she's found most precious in her relationships and life experiences. In exquisite prose, she shines a clear bright light on the hidden beauty that most of us blithely overlook in our own lives.There is something for everyone in this book, guaranteed. For the would-be writer, Patchett offers valuable insights and advice on the writing life in "The Getaway Car" and describes her own path to becoming a bestselling author. Anyone in law enforcement will especially appreciate "The Wall" in which she pays tribute to not only her father and his long career in the LAPD, but to police officers everywhere, as she recounts her own experience with the police academy. For educators, she nails the importance of wide reading in describing, both in essay and convocation address, the resistance she received when her book Truth and Beauty became assigned summer reading at Clemson. In writing of the deep bond she shared with Lucy Grealy, a former college and graduate school friend and writer who died at age 39, Patchett helps us grasp what real love truly is and how powerful its loss. And when she recounts the decline and death of her beloved grandmother, I wept. I won't even touch on her essays on marriage or dogs because they deserve so much more than a one-line, albeit effusive, acclamation. Actually, all of these essays do. Trust me. In this book, something will strike, if not your deepest chord, one you never knew you had.Patchett's work proves brilliant in putting all manner of things in proper perspective, although you may not catch on right away. Case in point? Read "Paris Match." In it, Patchett describes a relationship-breaking argument she had with her first husband and, later, with Karl over the answer to a word game at dinner. She shares the word game with us but, just as her first husband did with her and, later, she did with Karl, Patchett doesn't provide us with the answer. Let me tell you, I searched high and low online for that blasted answer, and all I found were readers, like me, peeved that they couldn't find it, too. Then it hit me. Could there have been any better way to get us all to understand just what a relationship-breaker withholding an answer to a silly word game could be? I don't think so.Kudos to Ann Patchett for her ingenious twist on "show, don't tell" and for not holding back on any other word in this beautiful body of work. I'm so glad I purchased, along with this one, her second collection of essays, These Precious Days. I'm all set. So, I say, let it snow, let it snow.
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