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I could not run with Ann Patchett as much as I would have liked to. The opening chapter of Bernadette’s Madonna statue being discussed was not too compelling, the beginning of the story dragged and I honestly put the book down and proceeded to read another book. It turns out that the death of Bernadette left three orphan sons and a widower, Doyle, former mayor of Boston. The remarkableness of the family bereft of a mother is that there are no female heirs to pass the Madonna statue to, and that the two other members of the family were African-American boys, adopted into this Irish family. The first son, Doyle’s biological son, Sullivan was not integral to the daily lives of the blended family.
During a snowy evening, after a Jesse Jackson meeting in a Cambridge Mass. home, Tip is almost sideswiped by an oncoming vehicle, when a woman in a Chevy jumps out to push him out of harm’s way. Tennessee, the woman gets badly injured and is sent to the hospital, and leaves behind a young girl, Kenya, who was in the car with her. Tip breaks his ankle. Tip and Teddy, the two boys look for Kenya, the 11 year old girl and they take her in their home.
Tip and Teddy are fine young boys. Tip is a smart, passionate ichthyologist and Harvard student and Teddy, a sweet younger brother has taken a fondness for the religious life, owing to his exposure to Father Sullivan, a maternal uncle. Doyle raises his sons to be upright and successful, loving and secure, and they acquire another member of the family, Kenya by happenstance, who has been watching the lives of Tip and Teddy all along. Tennesse is their biological mother, who has managed to keep tabs of these boys as they grew up with privilege in the house of Doyle. They live next to him in the projects. (In Boston, the elegant homes and the projects are close to each other, one can be living in Cathedral, next to a treelined area of homes of distinguished Bostonians).
Here is an unusual family that is put together, with all their attendant differences of race, passion, political and religious affiliations and somehow, they have to get along because of their circumstances and choices that they have made. “Run” is a catch-all for all the “runs” in the intertwined lives of the characters, Kenya is a runner, who runs races, Doyle wishes his boys to take after his political ambitions and compels them to “run” for public office if they could be coaxed into it. This is disappointing to Doyle because all that Tip is passionate about are the plethora of fish specimens that are in the Museum’s ichthyology (fish) run. All the characters seem devoid of any malevolent streaks. This is goodness expressed as the nature of people, they raise their kids to be loved and to be better citizens in a larger human community which is everyone’s duty.
