Commonwealth was published by HarperCollins in 2016 and is widely regarded as Patchett’s most autobiographical novel. At a christening party in 1964 Los Angeles, Bert Cousins — a deputy district attorney, already a father of four — kisses Beverly Keating, the baby’s mother. The kiss leads to an affair, which leads to two divorces and a remarriage: Bert marries Beverly, combining six children from two families into an awkward, underfunded blended household.
The novel spans fifty years and is told non-chronologically, moving between the children’s chaotic summers (when all six were sent to Virginia to stay with Bert’s parents, unsupervised and essentially feral) and their adult lives, when the consequences of the original disruption are still playing out. A central event — a childhood tragedy involving the children and a bottle of stolen gin — is the secret that binds the siblings together and that one of them, eventually, gives to a famous novelist to use as material. The act of turning family history into fiction becomes itself a betrayal, and Patchett — who is herself a novelist mining personal history — makes the metafictional dimension explicit without being heavy-handed about it.
The novel’s structure is its most striking formal feature. By refusing chronology, Patchett can juxtapose causes and effects decades apart: a moment in 1964 illuminates a conversation in 2012; a childhood scene acquires new meaning when you know what the children became. The technique mirrors the way families actually process their histories — not linearly but associatively, returning to the same events and seeing them differently each time.
Collecting Commonwealth
First edition (HarperCollins, New York, 2016): Hardcover with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $15–$35
- Very good: $8–$20