Book #71: Run

Title: Run
Author: Ann Patchett

At twenty-one, Tip Doyle has a lot on his mind. Well, fish, mostly, but as a Harvard student, he's feeling the pressure to get back to his books and his thesis, instead of standing on a freezing street corner in Boston, arguing with his father over whether or not he'll go to a reception honoring Jesse Jackson. But when he steps off a curb and an African American woman dives in front of a car to save his life, Tip's life changes forever. Tip and his younger brother, Teddy had been adopted by Bernard and Bernadette Doyle twenty years earlier. But it turns out that the mother who gave birth to them never stopped looking out for them (or following them!) to the point that she was eventually the woman who saved her birth son's life.

I enjoy the way that Ann Patchett combines literariness and good drama. In her earlier novel, Bel Canto, she humanized a terrorist/hostage situation. Although some parts of Run feel sort of like a string of amazing coincidences, I don't recall finding those coincidences preposterous as I was reading. I read the book quickly and really enjoyed it!
SONGS WITHOUT WORDS
THE GATHERING