Excerpt from Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

All three girls are in their twenties now, and for all their evolution and ostensible liberation, they have no interest in a story that is not about a handsome, famous man. Still, I am their mother, and they understand that they will have to endure me in order to get to him. I take back my place on the sofa and begin again, knowing full well that the parts they're waiting to hear are the parts I'm never going to tell them.

"Duke," Emily says. "We're ready."

"I promise you, he doesn't get here for a while."

* * *

"Is that all the Stage Managers?" Mr. Martin said finally, his voice tired.

Veronica's dear head popped out from the edge of the curtain. "That's all of them," she called, and then her eyes caught mine. She jerked her head back a split second before starting to laugh.

Mr. Martin picked his thermos off the floor and unscrewed the cap while his cohorts whispered among themselves. "Onward," he said.

While the Stage Manager is a solitary character, George and Emily exist in relation to each other and to their families, so the Georges and the Emilys auditioned in pairs. Again, Mr. Martin had chosen readings from the second act, which, in my opinion (and the high school girl at the back of the gym was newly loaded with opinions) was the practical choice. The first short exchange showed off more of Emily and the second one showed more of George, unless you were taking into account a person's ability to listen, in which case the primacy was reversed.

I wondered if the pairs had been put together based on any two people standing next to each other in line, or if Veronica was back there doing something funny, because the first George looked to be about sixteen, and the first Emily, not that I knew, looked every hard day of thirty-five. Rumor had it certain women wanted to play Emily forever. They criss-crossed New Hampshire town to town, year after year, trying to land the part. This one wore her hair in pigtails.

Mr. Martin asked if they were ready, and straightaway George began.

"Emily, why are you mad at me?" he said. I had the page from the script in my lap.

Emily blinked. Clearly, she was mad at George, but she struggled to decide whether or not to tell him. Then she turned and looked at Mr. Martin. She shielded her eyes with her hand the way you see people do in the movies when they're talking to directors out in the audience, but since there were no stage lights to squint into, the gesture failed. "I wasn't ready," she said.

"Not to worry," Mr. Martin said. "Just start again."

I imagined him talking to people about car insurance, life insurance, how State Farm would be there if their home burned to the ground. I bet he made it easy for them.

"Emily, why are you mad at me?" George said again.

She looked at George like she might kill him, then turned back to Mr. Martin. "He can't just start like that," Emily said. "I have to be ready."

I didn't understand what was happening, and then I did: She had lost. Like a horse that stumbles straight out of the gate. She hadn't even started and it was over.

"We can do it again," Mr. Martin said. "No matter."

"But it does matter." Would she cry? That's what we were waiting to see.

The boy was tall with a crazy thatch of light-brown hair that looked for all the world like he'd cut it himself in the dark. The expression on his face made me think he'd been working over some aspect of baseball in his head and just now realized he was in trouble. "I'm awfully sorry," George said, exactly the way George would say it—sorry and concerned and slightly buffaloed by the whole thing. In short, this guy was going ahead with his audition, and Emily knew that, too.

"I want to get back in line," she said, teetering. "I want to read with someone else."

"That's fine," Mr. Martin said, and before she had so much as turned, he called out in a louder voice, "We need another Emily."

Excerpted from Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. Copyright © 2023 by Ann Patchett. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.