Ann Patchett’s new novel is an American family saga involving six children, 50 years and too many coincidences to count. The premise is straight out of John Updike — a writer she admires — but her eye is on free love’s fallout, not its thrills. As the title hints, she’s interested in the larger family units that itchy-footed spouse-swappers inadvertently create when they do the dirty on their kin.
It opens with Bert, a father of three with another baby on the way, sneaking a kiss from Beverly, a married woman hosting a christening party for her second child, Frances. They’re drunk and it’s the Sixties; eventually Beverly ditches her husband, Fix, a Los Angeles cop, to set up home with Bert on the other side of the country — an idea that palls when she’s lumbered with his kids every summer.
Apparently Commonwealth draws on Patchett’s own family, and its structure, perhaps conveniently, avoids her having to inspect the cast’s motives too closely.
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