“Taft” by Ann Patchett

Another one moves from the "I'd Like To Read All Of Her Books" group to the "I've Read All Of Her Books" group! 

Ann Patchett's writing is magical. While I haven't unequivocally loved all of her novels (see Bel Canto and The Magician's Assistant, though these were still Very Good), I have found most of them to be brilliant, beautiful gems. Taft is up there with the best of them. 

Taft is the story of John Nickel, a former drummer who now manages a bar on Beale Street. He has a nine-year-old son, Franklin, who has moved to Miami with his mother Marian. Nickel hires a young waitress named Fay Taft, whose life (and that of her brother Carl) quickly gets tangled up with Nickel's. And there's a parallel story running through it all: Fay and Carl growing up back east, out in Coalfield, before the sudden and unexpected death of their father.

So have I done it? Have I really read them all? Well, apparently Ann Patchett collaborated on a book called Nashville: Scenes from the New American South, which (although it was published in 2018) I only heard about for the first time about ten minutes ago. I'll probably end up reading that someday, just because I can't not, but for today I'll give myself a pass so she can be in The Club. I'll just change it from "I've Read All Of Her Books" to "I've Read All Of Her Novels."