These Precious Days by Ann Patchett

By Joan Silverman

Harper/HarperCollins Publishers, 320 pp.

In the introduction to her radiant essay collection, These Precious Days, Ann Patchett describes the book’s genesis. She had written a piece on an unexpected late-life friendship that had taken her by storm. “That essay was so important to me that I wanted to build a solid shelter for it,” Patchett explains. If the book began as a meditation on love and mortality, it bloomed into a memoir that ranges far and wide. We meet the author’s mother and three fathers — yes, three fathers, as the essay is so named; her childhood best friend, Tavia; her husband Karl, a physician, pilot, rainmaker, and mensch; plus, an array of influential teachers and authors.

The book retraces Patchett’s life from several perspectives — daughter, friend, and wife; author, bookseller, and advocate for books. What one senses from early on is the centrality of Patchett’s moral compass and the tenacity of her approach to anything she takes on.

In “The First Thanksgiving,” for instance, the Sarah Lawrence freshman apparently missed the memo that dorms were closed and unheated over the holiday, so she stayed, hunkering down with sweaters and coats. She also managed to prepare a complete turkey dinner from scratch, unaware of possible shortcuts. Whatever Joy of Cooking said, she did.

In “How to Practice,” Patchett considers paring down her material life, inspired by the inverse example of her friend Tavia’s father, who died, having held on to everything. Patchett and Tavia agree that they’ll never leave such a burden for anyone to unravel. And so begins an epic housecleaning, a reckoning both literal and figurative, with all the emotions that inevitably attend.

Knowing that Patchett built this book around a core essay, one might view many of its companion pieces as a preface, of sorts — narratives that map the author’s trajectory to the central story. Two essays, in particular, do that quite directly, displaying the author’s penchant for embracing ideas and causes with passion and purpose.

In “The Worthless Servant,” Patchett writes about her friend Charlie Strobel, a Nashville priest who works with the homeless. Charlie is Patchett’s nominee for the role of a living saint. As she details his personal history of tragedy and loss, his accomplishments with the broken and displaced, and his efforts to unite members of the wider community in fellowship, one can easily understand Patchett’s assessment. She rides around with Charlie in his car one afternoon, and watches as he greets donors and needy alike, with equal acceptance.

“I find it shocking to realize how simple it would be….” Patchett says, “to find joy in the service of others, to open my heart and let it remain open to everyone, everyone, all the time.”

Put a pin in the story of Charlie Strobel, and fast forward to another of the book’s seminal essays, “There Are No Children Here.” Patchett tells the tale of Stevie, a poster child for adoption, whose picture and short bio ran in the local newspaper. Patchett promptly fell for little Stevie, captivated by his simple story of want and need. She called the agency listed in the article, even discussed the prospect of adoption with her husband, notwithstanding her long-established decision not to have children. (In fact, they didn’t adopt.) But Patchett became so obsessed with this little boy, and the possibility of helping, that she was only able to free herself by writing about it. Such was the impetus for her 2007 novel, Run.

Some twenty essays into the book, we finally reach the title story, the de facto centerpiece, that first ran last winter in Harper’s Magazine. Of course, it can stand alone, and beautifully, because it’s a story of extravagant goodwill and irresistible quirkiness. In the magazine, however, it lacked the context and roundness that the book so amply provides.

The essay, “These Precious Days,” chronicles Patchett’s meeting with actor Tom Hanks, who was promoting his first book of short stories, Uncommon Type, and had asked Patchett for an endorsement. At her first meeting with Hanks, Patchett also met his personal assistant, Sooki Raphael, whose unusual evening coat, its huge peonies embroidered on black velvet, caught the author’s attention.

“Sooki of the magnificent coat,” Patchett recalls. “She said almost nothing and yet my eye kept going to her, the way one’s eye goes to the flash of iridescence on a hummingbird’s throat.”

Eighteen months later, Hanks agreed to narrate Patchett’s book, The Dutch House, but was busy filming his next movie. It was unclear how the schedule might work. Enter Sooki, who wove together an unlikely patchwork of dates so that the recording could happen.

By now, sporadic emails between the two women had grown increasingly affectionate, their correspondence more personal. Sooki had recently been treated for pancreatic cancer and was in remission. Then, only months later, she was seeking a second opinion. It turned out that a clinical trial was taking place in Patchett’s hometown of Nashville, and not yet available in California, where Sooki lived. Patchett’s physician-husband Karl pulled some strings and was able to get Sooki into the Nashville program. Patchett then invited Sooki to come live with them during treatment.

But who was this stranger coming to stay in their home?

“Sooki was married? I had pictured her going through this alone, a conclusion I reached based on a lack of information and a florid imagination,” Patchett writes. “I didn’t know her. I didn’t know how old she was, I couldn’t remember her face, but there have been few moments in my life when I have felt so certain: I was supposed to help.”

What followed was hardly the playbook of a dying woman: Once a marathoner, Sooki walked two miles to power yoga in the mornings before chemo, and two miles back after her treatment. She set up an easel and would paint, all the while working remotely for Tom Hanks. Over the weeks, Sookie and Patchett developed routines around the house — cooking, reading, walking, kundalini yoga.

“Yoga was Sooki’s necessary social hour, and what I got in return was time with Sooki.” Patchett says. “‘These precious days I’ll spend with you,’ I sang in my head.”

Ever the novelist, Patchett sees the world in terms of story — what is the basic story, where does it go, how does it end? But this particular narrative presented twists that she hadn’t seen coming. This was friendship as an extreme sport: a race against time, against the odds, a love story, really, joyful even in the face of death.

As it turned out, Sooki and I needed the same thing: to find someone who could see us as our best and most complete selves,” Patchett says. “Astonishing to come across such a friendship at this point in life. At any point in life.”

As essays collections go, this one is exceptional not only for its title piece, but for its scope and eloquence. One could read this book, having known nothing of its author, and come away with a vivid sense of who she is. It’s a foundational text — smart, funny, reflective, generous, and kind.

Joan Silverman writes op-eds, essays, and book reviews. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune, and Dallas Morning News. She is the author of “Someday This Will Fit,” a collection of linked essays.