Patchett, Ann

▪ 2003

      The novel Bel Canto (2001) won two awards in 2002 for American writer Ann Patchett. The book was chosen for the PEN/Faulkner Award, honouring works of fiction by contemporary writers, and it received the Orange Prize for Fiction, given to a work by a woman published in the U.K. It had also been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2001. The novel, set in a Latin American country, explores relationships between terrorists and hostages who, shut off from the rest of the world, find unexpected bonds. Like the author's previous three novels, Bel Canto was well received by both readers and critics, and it confirmed Patchett's prominence among contemporary writers.

      Patchett was born on Dec. 2, 1963, in Los Angeles. When she was six years old, she and her mother and sister moved to Nashville, Tenn., where she grew up and where she made her home. She obtained a B.A. degree (1984) from Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, N.Y., and an M.F.A. (1987) from the University of Iowa. Her first fiction was published while she was an undergraduate. She held appointments at colleges and universities, including the position of Tennessee Williams fellow in creative writing at the University of the South in Nashville in 1997. From the beginning of her career, she won numerous awards for her writing, and in 1994 she received a Guggenheim fellowship.

      Although Patchett published many stories and short pieces of nonfiction, it was for her novels that she became best known. Her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), tells the story of a young pregnant woman who leaves the husband she does not love to travel to a home for unwed mothers. There, as her feelings change and she creates a new family, so do her plans for the future. The novel was adapted as a television movie in 1997. In Taft (1994) the black manager of a blues bar who is mourning the loss of his son finds a new family when he hires a young white woman, Fay Taft, and becomes involved in the problems of her brother, Carl. The author also wrote a screen adaptation of the novel. The Magician's Assistant (1997) tells of the discoveries of the widow of a homosexual magician named Parsifal. The woman, who also had been her husband's assistant, visits the family he had never told her of and learns about his past. One of the hostages in Bel Canto is a renowned operatic diva, and music becomes the medium by which the people of the novel communicate. As in Patchett's earlier novels, the characters are surprised to discover friendship, and even love, for one another.

Robert Rauch

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▪ American author

born Dec. 2, 1963, Los Angeles, Calif., U.S.

      American author whose novels often portrayed the intersecting lives of characters from disparate backgrounds.

      When Patchett was six years old, her family moved to Nashville, Tenn., where she grew up and where she made her home. She obtained a B.A. degree (1984) from Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, N.Y., and an M.F.A. (1987) from the University of Iowa. Her first work of fiction was published while she was an undergraduate. Patchett later held appointments at colleges and universities, including the position of Tennessee Williams (Williams, Tennessee) fellow in creative writing at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., in 1997. From the beginning of her career, she won numerous awards for her writing, and in 1994 she received a Guggenheim fellowship.

      Though she was widely published as a short-story writer and essayist, Patchett became best known for her novels. Her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), tells the story of a young pregnant woman who leaves the husband she does not love to travel to a home for unwed mothers. There, as her feelings change and she creates a new family, so do her plans for the future. The novel was adapted as a television movie in 1997. In Taft (1994) the black manager of a blues bar who is mourning the loss of his son finds a new family when he hires a young white woman, Fay Taft, and becomes involved in the problems of her brother, Carl. Patchett also wrote a screen adaptation of the novel. The Magician's Assistant (1997) relates the discoveries of the widow of a homosexual magician named Parsifal. The woman, who also had been her husband's assistant, visits the family he had never told her of and learns about his past.

      With her fourth novel, Bel Canto, Patchett established her prominence among contemporary writers. The novel, set somewhere in South America, explores relationships between terrorists and hostages who, shut off from the rest of the world, find unexpected bonds. One of the hostages is a renowned operatic diva, and music becomes the medium by which the characters in the novel communicate. The novel received the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

      In 2005 Patchett published her first full-length volume of nonfiction writing, Truth and Beauty, a memoir recounting her friendship with the writer Lucy Grealy, who died of a drug overdose in 2002. Patchett returned to fiction with her next book, Run (2007), which explores the relationship between an ambitious father and his two sons.

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