(…as we were), it helped me realize another thing that’s really annoying about Ann Patchett’s novel Run: it’s ripped directly from Common Ground, only it loses all of the latter’s majesty and honesty toward its characters, and replaces them with cheap sentimentality. One of the families that Lukas follows in Common Ground, for instance, ends up suffering a crime so horrifying that thinking about it has denied me sleep on a few occasions; Lukas depicts the crime matter-of-factly, because his whole project is to turn an honest eye on race and on cities. A ghastly crime simply wouldn’t fit within Patchett’s world; it’s not treacly enough for her, and Run is trying so hard to Say Something that it avoids being honest when it should.

I’d invite you to read Common Ground and then Run, and tell me that Patchett didn’t ape the former in writing the latter. It would be one thing if she’d aped it with any respect or skill; as it is, she colorized it and replaced the soundtrack with carnival music.