These Precious Days: Essays

Born in California, Ann Patchett grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, after her mother moved Patchett and her sister there following her divorce from Patchett’s father and remarriage to Mike Glasscock. Patchett completed her BA from Sarah Lawrence and MFA from the University of Iowa. She published her first short story while still an undergraduate student and went on to publish her first novel in her twenties. Most celebrated for her novels, Patchett has also penned numerous short stories and works of non-fiction, including collections of essays and a memoir about her friendship with the late poet Lucy Grealy (Ann Patchett).

These Precious Days is a collection of personal essays and reflections, some previously published and some penned by Patchett during the coronavirus pandemic. She draws on life experiences and close relationships to explore ideas about life, and through these explorations, the reader also gets a sense of Patchett as a person. Patchett’s value system deeply influences the insights she gleans from her different experiences. She admires the life of service led by Strobel and appreciates her mother and her friend, Tavia, for their innate kindness and hardworking natures. These point to a worldview in which love and charity are important, and in which it is possible and desirable to make one’s own luck and choose one’s own happiness. This sense of accountability is also tempered by religion playing an important role in Patchett’s life, having attended Catholic school as a child. Though Patchett does not display a particularly deep Christian faith, the sensibility comes through in the emphasis on charity and the understanding that certain things in life lie outside an individual’s control.

This worldview leads Patchett to arrive at a sense of acceptance and contentment, even following difficult or sorrowful experiences. Watching her friend Sooki grapple with cancer or witnessing her father’s health deteriorate from a neurological disorder sees Patchett arise from these experiences with a sense of gratitude for what was. She resolves to stay present and appreciate what life offers for her now, looking back at the past with “tenderness” rather than remaining enmeshed in grief or bitterness. Strobel is, once again, an example to her in this context, as she appreciates his ability to meet the world with love and openness despite his difficult background.

Patchett can perhaps maintain this attitude owing to the large, supportive network of people in her life. Because of her mother’s multiple divorces and remarriages, Patchett grew up with a biological sister and extended and blended families on both parents’ sides. The relationships across these families are presented as loving and involved; her stepfather Mike, for example, is an important influence in her life growing up, and she displays a fondness for her stepmother, who took great care of her father in the later stages of his life. Patchett’s fairly well-adjusted family life is complemented by her many strong and long-lasting friendships, such as Tavia from her schooldays and Erica and Marti from college.

Although once divorced, Patchett eventually finds love and companionship in Karl VanDevender, her husband and partner, in more ways than one. Besides serving as the subject of a couple of essays in the collection, Karl finds mention in multiple others, and Patchett paints the picture of a stable and content marriage. In addition to all of these presences in her life, Patchett displays the ability to open her heart and home to people, even in her adult life. She and the author Kate DiCamillo meet when they are both adults and established writers, and Kate becomes a good friend. Similarly, Sooki comes into Patchett’s life when they are both well into middle age, which births one of the most meaningful friendships of both their lives. Patchett is constantly bolstered by her network of family and friends, which influences the centrality of the theme The Value of Relationships and Community explored in the book.

Ultimately, Patchett is a writer, and this has, by her own admission, been an integral aspect of her identity for as long as she can remember. This features in how Patchett approaches things, as made clear in her essays. Her life experiences, big and small, are processed through writing, with this collection itself born out of such a need. Patchett artfully connects different moments in her life to arrive at insightful realizations. She approaches life as she does writing, making sense of it all as she goes along.