Commonwealth

Written by the best-selling author Ann Patchett, Commonwealth was published in 2016 and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Commonwealth tells the story of two families: the Keatings and the Cousins. In a nonlinear fashion, the novel follows their stories over fifty years from multiple points of view, although the dominant point of view comes from Franny Keating. The novel explores the burdens and joys of children and old age, how divorce and death create realignment in families, and the power and pleasure of storytelling.

Plot Summary

The story opens in Southern California at the home of Fix and Beverly Keating, who are having a christening party for their baby girl Franny. The party becomes wilder than expected once everyone starts drinking. Bert Cousins and his wife Teresa are two guests at the party. Bert becomes infatuated with Beverly, and ends up kissing her. Bert and Beverly eventually have an affair, divorce Fix and Teresa, marry each other, and move to Virginia. 

The story flashes forward almost fifty years. Fix Keating, now in his eighties, is dying of esophageal cancer, and his daughter Franny has come to visit and help him with his chemotherapy treatments. As Fix receives treatments and talks to Franny, Franny listens eagerly to his stories, knowing their time is limited.

When Franny was a child, she and her step-siblings came together every summer in Bert and Beverly’s new home in Virginia. The children, for the most part, get along with each other. Their animosity is directed toward their parents. The Cousins children (Cal, Holly, Jeanette, and Albie) are angry (especially Cal) at their father Bert for leaving their mother, while the Keating children (Caroline and Franny) are angry (especially Caroline) at their mother for leaving their father. When Bert takes his family on vacation, the parents spend most of the time in their hotel room, so the children walk unchaperoned to a lake on their own. Because the youngest, Albie, annoys them, they give Albie Benadryl so he will fall asleep and stop pestering them.

Later in the novel, Cal is stung by a bee and dies. Albie is unconscious during the event, drugged with the pills that could have been used to treat Cal. The children lie about the events leading up to Cal’s death, which remains ambiguous to multiple characters in the novel but has lifelong effects.

When Franny is in her twenties, she feels adrift working as a cocktail waitress in Chicago after dropping out of law school. She meets Leon Posen, a famous author who is much older than she is, and is exhilarated. She becomes involved in a five-year relationship with him. During this time, Leon uses Franny’s childhood as material for a best-selling novel titled Commonwealth. When Albie, who has had a troubled childhood and transition to adulthood, later reads the book and realizes it is about his life, he is furious and seeks out Leon. That confrontation leads to the breakdown of Franny and Leon’s relationship.

The story returns to Fix on his 83rd birthday. He wants to see the film adaptation of Commonwealth, which has come out years after the book’s publication and Leon’s death. He is shocked by the film’s depiction of his life, and his daughters Franny and Caroline struggle to help him leave in the middle of the movie when he gets upset. Franny gets a phone call from Albie, who is worried about his mother’s health. They check on Teresa and realize that they must take her to the hospital. Teresa is embarrassed but also grateful. She is also happy to see Fix again, especially since he had once helped her after Albie had been arrested for arson. Teresa dies at the hospital. A few years earlier, Teresa had retired from her job and went to visit Holly, who lives at a Zen center in Switzerland. Teresa’s own meditation leads to a vision of Cal, the dead son whom she can once again embrace. 

The story ends with another party thrown by Beverly, who is divorced from Bert and remarried. Franny, who is now married with two step-children, briefly leaves the Christmas party and drives to Bert’s nearby house. After visiting, she stands alone on Bert’s porch, remembering a time when she and Albie were teenagers and the only children living in the house. She is happy that she did not share that memory with Leon because it would have become distorted in the book and film Commonwealth. She is happy to have that memory for herself.