Taft - Softcover

Best-selling novelist Ann Patchett’s second, "strikingly original"* novel tells the moving story of John Nickel, an ex–jazz musician who wanted nothing more than to be a good father. When his lover takes away his son, he’s left only with his Beale Street bar. He hires a young waitress named Fay Taft, who brings with her a desperate, dangerous brother, Carl, and the possibility of new intimacy. Nickel finds himself consumed with Fay and Carl’s dead father— Taft—obsessing over and reconstructing the life of a man he never met.

A stunning artistic achievement,

Taft confirms Ann Patchett’s standing as one of the most gifted writers of her generation and reminds us of our deepest instincts to protect the people we love.

*Kirkus Reviews

A New York Times Notable Book

“A moving emblem of fatherhood’s rarely explored passion.”—Los Angeles Times

 

“Absorbing .º.º. Strikingly original.”—Kirkus Reviews

 

 

John Nickel, an ex–jazz musician, wanted nothing more than to be a good father, but when his son is taken away Nickel is left only with his Beale Street bar. He hires a young waitress named Fay Taft, who brings with her a desperate, dangerous brother, Carl. Nickel finds himself consumed with Fay and Carl’s dead father— Taft—obsessing over and reconstructing the life of a man he never met. But his fascination for Taft and his sympathy for these lost, young strangers soon take him down a twisting, darkening path.

 

        A stunning artistic achievement, Taft confirms Ann Patchett’s standing as one of our most gifted writers and reminds us of our deepest instincts to protect the people we love.

 

        A stunning artistic achievement, Taft confirms Ann Patchett’s standing as one of our most gifted writers and reminds us of our deepest instincts to protect the people we love.

 

“Patchett writes with remarkable conviction and attention to telling details.”—Jane Smiley in Mirabella

 

 

ANN PATCHETT is the author of six novels, including Bel Canto, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize. She has written for the Atlantic, Gourmet, the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, the Washington Post, and others.