Summary of Ann Patchett's These Precious Days

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 I have married twice, and my sister three times. None of us set out for this. We meant to stick our landing on the first try, but we stumbled. My parents divorced when I was five, and my mother married Darrell when I was twenty-seven.

#2 The Three Fathers died in the order in which my mother had married them, and they died in the inverse order of their health. My father went first, even though he had made a religion of the elliptical trainer, the treadmill, and the NordicTrack. He spent four slow years dying of a neurological disease called progressive supranuclear palsy.

#3 My father had grown up the third of seven children. He was born in 1931, the first of the Patchetts to have been born in America. His parents left England to find work in California, and after a long stretch of nothing, his father landed a job as a machinist at Columbia Pictures.

#4 My father, as a writer, believed that childhood development rested on the ability to play volleyball. He wanted me to be athletic, join clubs, and start clubs. But I believed I would be a writer, and he didn’t understand that.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669357247

IRB Media

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Insights on Ann Patchett's These Precious Days

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 18

Insights from Chapter 19

Insights from Chapter 20

Insights from Chapter 21

Insights from Chapter 22

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I have married twice, and my sister three times. None of us set out for this. We meant to stick our landing on the first try, but we stumbled. My parents divorced when I was five, and my mother married Darrell when I was twenty-seven.

#2

The Three Fathers died in the order in which my mother had married them, and they died in the inverse order of their health. My father went first, even though he had made a religion of the elliptical trainer, the treadmill, and the NordicTrack. He spent four slow years dying of a neurological disease called progressive supranuclear palsy.

#3

My father had grown up the third of seven children. He was born in 1931, the first of the Patchetts to have been born in America. His parents left England to find work in California, and after a long stretch of nothing, his father landed a job as a machinist at Columbia Pictures.

#4

My father, as a writer, believed that childhood development rested on the ability to play volleyball. He wanted me to be athletic, join clubs, and start clubs. But I believed I would be a writer, and he didn’t understand that.

#5

I loved my father, but he did not understand my love for writing. He wanted me to be a dental hygienist, and I would have killed him if we had lived in the same house. He had taken orders and I would take orders.

#6

I became rich, which changed my father’s opinion of me. He now thought my being a writer was the perfect plan. But I still didn’t think of writing as a job.

#7

The word crazy is often used incorrectly. It’s all a matter of reference. My stepfather was a successful surgeon who lectured all over the world, but he spent