my books is time, and I felt that time in my work was contracting. ... and so I was very interested in writing a book that covered more time. ... I wanted to be able to move through time and between characters...” According to Ron Charles of the Washington Post “In someone else’s hands, “Commonwealth” would be a saga, a sprawling chronicle of events and relationships spread out over dozens of chapters. But Patchett is daringly elliptical here. Not only are decades missing, but they're also out of order. We’re not so much told this story as allowed to listen in from another room as a door swings open and closed.” Jeanne Brown, in the Los Angeles Times called it “the 50-year Fallout After an Illicit kiss” She pointed out that forty years after Calvin died, family members are still not sure what happened. “The present story lines are overshadowed by the events of the past, the book’s most contemporary scenes existing primarily as an entrée to older memories.” Reception Reviewers praised Patchett’s skill in thoroughly engaging readers without using the fast-paced plots or exotic locations of her earlier novels. The novel was described as “exquisite,” “masterful,” “breathtaking, perceptive, and poignant,” “tenderhearted and tough, dryly funny and at times intensely moving,” “unpretentious and ultimately heartbreaking, miniaturist but also sprawling” and "full of wit and warmth", as well as "a funny, sad, and ultimately heart-wrenching family portrait," and a wry but compassionate tale of step-siblings forced to become family. Jennifer Senior observed in the New York Times, “Ms. Patchett has long explored the awkwardness, pain and grace that come when total strangers are forced into unexpected alliances. This theme found its fullest expression in her 2001 best seller, Bel Canto, whose glamorous characters were taken hostage at a birthday party. But a far more common form of involuntary companionship — which doesn't involve guns but often feels like it does — is the blended family. Tolerating your own kin is hard enough. Tolerating someone else’s is harder by a coefficient of 10.” As Ron Charles explained in the Washington Post, early in the novel “... we’re thoroughly invested in these families, wrapped up in their lives by Patchett’s storytelling, which has never seemed more effortlessly graceful. This is minimalism that magically speaks volumes,” Janelle Brown of the Los Angeles Times said, “Reading “Commonwealth” is a transporting experience, as if you've stepped