Re:Thinking with Adam GrantThe craft of storytelling with Ann Patchett | ReThinking
CHAPTERS
- 0:00 – 0:16
Reading as a “gateway drug” and why any reading matters
Ann Patchett opens with the idea that a single book can be the entry point to a lifetime of reading. She frames bookstores and reading habits as self-reinforcing: comfort with books leads to more books.
- •A first book can spark a broader reading life
- •Bookstores as places that build reading confidence
- •Reading momentum: “If you read nothing, you’re always gonna read nothing”
- •Focus on getting people to read, not what they read at first
- 0:16 – 1:39
A father in the LAPD: famous cases, family distance, and being shielded
Adam asks about Patchett’s unusual upbringing with a father who worked major LAPD cases. She explains those experiences didn’t dominate her childhood, largely because she was young and her father didn’t bring that world home.
- •Her father’s involvement in high-profile cases (Manson, Sirhan Sirhan)
- •He didn’t talk about murderers at home
- •Those names felt abstract when she was a child
- •Early context for her later reputation for seeing goodness in people
- 1:39 – 2:37
Divorce, moving to Tennessee, and a “civil servant” family identity
Patchett describes her parents’ divorce, the move from Los Angeles to Tennessee, and how little she saw her father. She reflects on how logistics (then-expensive travel and phone calls) shaped family connection, and remembers visits to the police academy fondly.
- •Moved away young; saw her father about a week a year
- •Travel/long-distance calls as major barriers then
- •Police academy visits as a positive childhood memory
- •Broader family culture of public service (firefighter, prosecutor)
- 2:37 – 3:45
Helping her mother become a novelist: discipline beats mystique
Patchett recounts pushing her mother—formerly a nurse—to write a book as a path to retirement. She emphasizes accountability and consistent deadlines over romantic ideas of inspiration.
- •Encouraging her mother to write later in life
- •Confidence and structure as missing ingredients
- •Weekly chapter deadlines and persistent follow-through
- •Writing framed as discipline and project management
- 3:45 – 5:15
Wanting to be a writer from age seven—before she could read fluently
Patchett says she never wanted to be anything but a writer. She traces that certainty to an unstable childhood with irregular schooling, where storytelling became a survival skill before reading and writing caught up.
- •Early identity: writer from childhood
- •Family upheaval and frequent moves limited schooling
- •Learned to read properly around third grade
- •Storytelling helped her “get through” academically
- 5:15 – 6:35
What makes a storyteller: ear for language and relentless practice
Patchett argues the key storytelling skill is the ability to keep showing up and doing the work. She compares writing to learning an instrument: practice, repetition, and stamina matter more than muse-driven mythology.
- •Early strengths: rhyme, poems, strong ear for language
- •Core skill: willingness to work even on “nothing” days
- •Writing as practice like playing cello
- •Reframing “writer’s block” as insufficient practice
- 6:35 – 9:15
How to practice writing: revise, get feedback, discard—and grow
Pressed on what deliberate practice looks like for writers, Patchett outlines an iterative cycle: revise repeatedly, seek readers, and sometimes throw work away to transfer learning to the next piece. Publication is a byproduct; improvement is the goal.
- •Revision and trusted feedback as a practice loop
- •Throwing away “finished” work to avoid attachment
- •Publication is not the end game; skill-building is
- •Honest self-assessment as a late-career necessity
- 9:15 – 13:16
Writing for love, not outcome: Elizabeth Gilbert’s private essay lesson
Patchett shares a formative story about Elizabeth Gilbert writing an extraordinary essay with no intention to publish it. The takeaway: writing must begin as an act of love and personal necessity, with decisions about audiences coming later.
- •A “private” essay can be the best work
- •Write for the sake of writing, then decide its path
- •Process orientation sustains motivation
- •Writing as identity and meaning-making (Didion quote)
- 13:16 – 16:20
Fiction vs. nonfiction: freedom, constraints, and essays that “arrive”
Patchett calls fiction a godlike act of total creation—and therefore a massive burden. Nonfiction, by contrast, tends to find her through life events that already have a built-in shape, like the returned high-school nightstand story.
- •Fiction as total world-building responsibility
- •Nonfiction as found material with natural boundaries
- •Nightstand/papers story as a perfectly structured essay
- •Themes: objects, memory, and how meaning varies by person
- 16:20 – 18:07
Turning real love into fiction: grief, friendship, and writing ‘Whistler’
Patchett explains how the death of her friend Jim Fox unlocked a new novel, allowing her to transfer real love onto invented characters. Writing the book felt unusually joyful and companionable, as if she were spending time with her friend.
- •A New Yorker essay as the seed for the novel
- •Using real affection to animate fictional relationships
- •Writing as a way to stay close to someone lost
- •Adam’s reaction: savoring sentences and feeling love on the page
- 18:07 – 19:14
Who reads what—and why she’s content as long as people read
A discussion about gendered reading patterns leads Patchett to a pragmatic stance: she’s less interested in converting readers to “literary fiction” than in ensuring people read at all. She views genre-hopping as a natural eventual outcome of sustained reading.
- •Observation from bookstore: men trend nonfiction, women fiction
- •Debate about literary fiction audiences
- •No mission to ‘fix’ preferences—mission is reading itself
- •Reading in any genre can lead to broader exploration
- 19:14 – 23:00
Why she opened Parnassus Books—and how it changed her life
Patchett clarifies she didn’t dream of owning a bookstore; she started one because Nashville lost its bookstores and someone had to act. Over time, curating first-editions picks and interviewing authors became both exhausting and deeply rewarding—and pushed her beyond introversion.
- •Bookstore born from civic necessity, not personal ambition
- •First Editions Club: constant curation and galley overload
- •Author interviews as life-giving, ‘holy’ encounters
- •Bookstore ownership expands her comfort zone and productivity
- 23:00 – 26:35
A tent revival for reading: community, tours, and optimism vs. “toxic positivity”
Patchett describes how bookstores and tours create intense communal energy around reading, countering narratives that books are dying. She then unpacks her satire of a positivity peddler in ‘Whistler,’ distinguishing her natural optimism from performative positivity-as-commerce.
- •Store and tour crowds as evidence reading is alive
- •Reading as social connection, not solitary escape
- •Satirizing positivity marketed as an empire
- •Defending the realism of kindness over darkness-as-credibility
- 26:35 – 40:41
Randomness, agency, and bittersweet love: ‘Whistler’ themes and closing segments
Patchett reflects on the randomness that shapes lives, illustrating it with a chance college recommendation that changed her trajectory. The conversation moves through a lightning round (bad advice: ‘write what you know’; underrated tip: posture), rethinking book tour through “right speech,” and a paradox of bookstore growth without expansion.
- •Life paths shaped by chance encounters (Sarah Lawrence story)
- •Agency: acting on randomness matters as much as randomness itself
- •Lightning round: curiosity over ‘write what you know’; posture/ergonomics; treadmill desk
- •Rethinking book tour by changing self-talk and expectations
- •Managing growth: default-to-no, subtraction rules, and accepting an ongoing paradox
