Run | 
 enlarge | Author: Ann Patchett
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  192 reviews
Sales Rank: 115188
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.3
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
ASIN: B00150II3U
Publication Date: September 25, 2007
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Condition: Brand new! Beautiful! May have small remainder mark (ink mark) along edge, gift quality, crisp, multiple copies available, great book, fast shipping, excellent service.
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Product Description
Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving, possessive, and ambitious father. As the former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see his sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his children—all his children—safe. Set over a period of twenty-four hours, Run takes us from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard to a home for retired Catholic priests in downtown Boston. It shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from each other, and how family can include people you've never even met. As in her bestselling novel Bel Canto, Ann Patchett illustrates the humanity that connects disparate lives, weaving several stories into one surprising and endlessly moving narrative. Suspenseful and stunningly executed, Run is ultimately a novel about secrets, duty, responsibility, and the lengths we will go to protect our children.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 187 more reviews...
 RUN To Get this Book October 9, 2008
While I have read many excellent books this year, few (if any) have resonated with me the way that this book did. While Ann Patchett presents her story in a straightforward easy to read style, each plot twist, each character, each paragraph is thick with meaning and insight.
The book describes a 24-hour period in the life of the Doyle "family" (quotes conveying the extended nature of the family), and the experiences that ensue when Tip, the black adopted middle son of white, Irish, former Boston mayor, Bernard Doyle, is saved from an oncoming hit and run (at the sacrifice of life and limb) by his theretofore unknown biological mother.
The author uses this event as the jumping off point for the exploration of family. The Doyle family consists of Bernard Doyle, his now deceased wife, Bernadette, his two adopted black sons, the aforementioned Tip and Teddy (named for two famous Massachusetts politicians), Doyle's biological son, nere-do-well Sullivan, and the dead mother's uncle, Father Sullivan. The family of the sacrificing biological mother, Tennessee Moser, consists of Tennessee, Kenya, her talented, intelligent, intuitive 11-year old daughter (and presumably Tip and Teddy's sister), and a largely unnamed friend (who comes to play a small, but crucial role later in the tale).
Ann Patchett does an extraordinary job of raising many compelling questions on the nature of family and the roles of the persons who comprise it. The following are some of the issues that caught my attention:
1. The author's message seems to be that a "family" is more a collection of persons who elect to view and treat themselves as such, rather than a relation based on blood or common ancestry. The book begins with a tale (a fable?) of a statue (a startling likeness of the now dead Bernadette) that gets passed down through the generations. Which "family member" ends up with the statue supports this view.
2. I was particularly interested in the presentation of the tension between the duties of a member of a family and the individual's desire to following his own interests and path. The elder Doyle desperately wanted his sons to adopt his social conscience and enter politics, while the studious Tip preferred the solitude of the ichthyology (fish) lab, and the caring Teddy desired to follow the lead of Uncle Sullivan into the priesthood. At one point, Tip and Kenya end up in his lab filled with fish specimens in glass jars, and he is so moved by the interest she shows in the specimens and Tip's knowledge--drawing a stark contrast from his father's lack of interest.
3. Tennessee, the boys' biological mother who gave them up, spent the last 20 years living as an unknown, unseen witness to the boys' lives, but always retaining a connection--even though they didn't know it. Passing them in the street, seeing them in restaurants and theaters, looking through their windows when they passed the house, knowing their interests and career paths, without them ever noticing. Honestly, this description gave me a chill. Tennessee relates to one instance when she almost touched Tip in a crowd, and even discusses feeling electricity when touching him for the brief moment necessary to push him away from the oncoming car. To have that much love and connection with someone who doesn't know you exist--even when passing you on the street--is truly a remarkable notion.
4. The books described pattern of familial behavior into which family members permit themselves to fall, and which tend to define the person, but aren't necessarily who or all those family members are as people. In this light, I was fascinated by the scenes involving the nere-do-well son, Sullivan, and his facility in interacting with the distraught Kenya--something the other family members found much more difficult. Sullivan was really much of a person than his family structure permitted, but sadly, even he himself bought into this restrictive definition in defining and comporting himself.
While I could go on, my best recommendation is to RUN and buy/read this truly extraordinary book.
Not as simple as it looks. October 6, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Run by Ann Pachette
At first, my interest in this book was about a single parent with adopted children. It became even more interested when an incident brings another child to them for caretaking. This is a fantasy of mine, that I will be in a situation to care for a needy child.(I am a child and family therapist but cannot "rescue" children I work with professionally.) This part of the story is somewhat contrived but the ending, somewhat predictable but not in the sense of a recurring dream I have had since my husband died suddenly at a young age. In my dream, my late husband is always leaving. I'm now reading about a woman who disappears, needing to be invisible from her family.The theme of leaving a family under so many unusual conditions is a curious one. It leaves you wondering where is the character running away from or running toward. This is what made the book so interesting. I thought it was well written and now my favorite of Ann Pachette.
 Slowly Reaches the Finish Line September 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I wanted so much to like this book. It speaks to so many life-impacting themes - family, race, class, politics, science. But, the many enjoyable parts do not congeal into a satisfying whole. The prose is softly spoken even when describing pain and death, and follow-on grief. The writer turns some phrases so well that they warrant reading them aloud. In a natural, off-hand manner, Patchett centers the plot on a white politician's and his wife's adopting two black children to fill out their one-child family. The children's acceptance by the Irish extended family further defines the capacity to love those born outside our bloodline. This is a strong, well done element of the book. The first sentence tells us that Bernadette, the mother has died, and this sets the tone for how the all-male unit, including the uncle, Father Sullivan continues in her absence. Yet, she is never truly absent; her memory drives the men's thoughts and actions. Also, the writer uses the device of the mother to connect to the other females, including the statue of the Madonna. Two of these females are another mother and her daughter, who are introduced in a contrived scene (one of several that just don't ring true). All the characters, including walk-on parts, convey nearly total goodness. Perhaps, this is the critical weakness in the story: everyone is just too good. The inter-generational conflict, the appearance of the birth mother, everyone's quiet approach to loss (lots of losses here), are subdued to the point of robotic. Yes, the characters are likeable, even lovable, if too often flat. The research in history and science is apparent. There just isn't enough dramatic heat to fuel total interest in the story.
 24-hour story September 22, 2008
The 24-hour period covered in the story (about the length of time that elapsed from start to finish for me) makes for a "real-time" and fast-paced plot. Draws you in and keeps you reading.
Boston is slammed to a standstill by an unexpected snowstorm, just as a car accident plunges the Doyles into the mind-boggling puzzle of their past. Animation is suspended in the city while the family discovers and sorts out their ties with Tennessee and her young daughter Kenya. It's intriguing that in the end, the reader is the only one who knows the whole truth.
Other reviewers have questioned the plausibility of some of the plot's turns. How did Beverly pull off her identity change, for instance? She managed it because, just as none of the police or ambulance people were concerned enough to find out if Kenya had anywhere to go after the accident or to assist Tip, lying in the snow, no one was paying attention when two black women melted into one.
My only quibbles are with the Boston geography and weather. Why would you have to go past Mass. General on the way from the Back Bay to Mt. Auburn hospital? And Pachett should have made the temperature lower than 20 degrees on the sunny day after the snow storm to warrant all the fuss about the arctic conditions.
This is a Story You'll Remember September 7, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Twenty years ago or so His Honor Bernard Doyle and his Wife Bernadette adopted an African American baby. Later they get a phone call, the mother can't care for the child's older brother, would they adopt him as well? So, the Doyles, who already had a twelve-year-old son now have two new sons, ages five and fourteen months.
Four years later Bernadette dies and Doyle has to raise the children on his own. He's a lover of politics and he wants that for his new sons, but one turns to science, the other wants to be a priest and his oldest has turned out the be the black sheep of the family. It's because of him that Doyle had to leave politics.
In the present Doyle drags his sons to see a Jesse Jackson speech. A car bears down on one of them. An African American woman rushes from the crowd, pushes the boy to safety, but is struck herself. She has a young daughter named Kenya and from her the Doyles learn Kenya's mother is also the mother of Doyles two sons.
And there you have it, the setup for a heartwarming, sometimes feel good, sometimes sad, always real story. There isn't the tension here you'll find in Bel Canto, but there is more humanity, more soul. I thought so anyway, but Lord knows I could be wrong, I often am, but this story moved me in a way Bel Canto did not, though I don't want to be seen to be slighting Bel Canto in any way as it's a masterpiece, just different than this story, I guess that's what I'm saying. This is a book about family. It's an important book, one you'll remember.
Reviewed by Vesta Irene
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