Run

by Ann Patchett

Tip and Teddy are becoming men under the very eyes of their adoptive father, Bernard Doyle. A student at Harvard, Tip is happiest in a lab, whilst Teddy thinks he has found his calling in the Church, and both are increasingly strained by their father’s protective plans for them. But when they are involved in an accident on an icy road, the Doyles are forced to confront certain truths about their lives, how the death of Doyle’s wife Bernadette has affected the family, and an anonymous figure who is always watching.

(From Publisher).

 Ann Patchett is the author of four previous novels, including Bel Canto, which won the Orange prize. She writes for the New York Times Magazine, Elle, GQ, The Paris Review and Vogue. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee

Ann Patchett has written a very American novel that initially may seem small in scale but is one which engages the reader deftly and without didacticism, in an examination of important themes.

Run is the story of an ambitious father who wants the best for his children and who fiercely guards the boundaries between his family and the outside world. A traumatic event shows that the lines he has always understood-between family and stranger, race and class - are not as immutable as he has imagined.