Run is a 2007 novel by American author Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett is an American author. She received the Orange Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2002 for her novel Bel Canto. Patchett's other novels include Run, The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, and The Magician's Assistant, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize...

. It is her first novel to be published since her widely successful Bel Canto

Bel Canto (novel)

Bel Canto is a 2001 novel by American author Ann Patchett, published by Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. It was awarded both the Orange Prize for Fiction and PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction...

 (2001).

Plot summary

This novel tells the story of Bernard Doyle, an Irish Catholic Boston politician. He married, had one son, and adopted two more. The adopted kids are African-American brothers named Tip and Teddy. (The adoptees' names were given to them by the Doyles as a tribute to the Massachusetts senators Thomas "Tip" O'Neill

Tip O'Neill

Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill, Jr. was an American politician. O'Neill was an outspoken liberal Democrat and influential member of the U.S. Congress, serving in the House of Representatives for 34 years and representing two congressional districts in Massachusetts...

 and Edward "Teddy" Kennedy

Edward Kennedy

Edward Kennedy may refer to:*Ted Kennedy, Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy , United States Senator from Massachusetts*Edward Kennedy , journalist who first reported the German surrender in World War II*Edward Kennedy, Jr., son of U.S...

) Four years later, Doyle loses his wife to cancer. Sixteen years after his wife's death, their two adopted sons are University students. Bernard, the former mayor of Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, has invited them to a Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson

Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to...

 lecture. After the lecture, Bernard asks his sons to go to a reception. Tip declines and backs off a curb into the path of an oncoming car. A woman in the crowd pushes him out of the way and is injured in the process. The novel's plot centers around the story of that woman's identity. Her daughter, an 11 year old girl named Kenya, asks to live with the Doyles. The plot has to do with interracial adoption, familial allegiances and rivalries, Boston’s notoriously complex political and racial history.

Reception

Leah Hager Cohen, of The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, reviewed the book, saying:

"If Patchett had exhumed her characters’ motivations more thoroughly, she might have persuaded readers of the circumstances that led to such a choice. And in so doing she might have elicited deeper sympathy and interest. The Jesse Jackson lecture turns out to be little more than a set piece, and the characters’ racial identities are either ignored or too broadly indicated. (Kenya and her mother live in a housing project; Kenya, Tip and Teddy are all endowed with a stereotypical black athletic gift, a talent for running.) 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."

Nora Seton, of the Houston Chronicle

Houston Chronicle

The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...

: "This is a novel staffed exclusively by protagonists, and Patchett's often dazzling insights cannot lift it into second gear. Run would have profited from a brutish and anguished soul."

Writing for The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

, John Updike

John Updike

John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....

 offered the following insight: "As realism, her novel is pale; but as a metaphoric representation of growth it transcends its sentimentality."

Andrew O'Hagan

Andrew O'Hagan

Andrew O'Hagan, FRSL is a Scottish novelist and non-fiction author. He is also an Editor at Large of Esquire and is currently a creative writing fellow at King's College London. He was selected by for inclusion in their 2003 list of the top 20 young British novelists. His novels appear...

, Signature Review for Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...

: " ... the book is lovely to read and is satisfyingly bold in its attempt to say something patient and true about family."

Run is a New York Times bestseller.

External links

• http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07294/826610-148.stm/
• Guardian Review
• The Independent Review
• http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/fiction/article2436947.ece/
• http://myquestforaclassic.com/category/books/run/