SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Author Ann Patchett says she's comfortable being wrong.
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ANN PATCHETT: You know, there's so many things you want to be wrong about. I want to be wrong about climate change. I want to be wrong about the state of our nation. I hope to be wrong. So yeah, I think I'm really comfortable with it. Also, I have a terrible sense of direction (laughter). So at least five times a day, I am wrong.
DETROW: Patchett's most recent book embraces that idea of being wrong. She's put out an annotated version of her popular novel, "Bel Canto." This edition is marked up with notes about all of the things she would change about the book looking back on it now. She told NPR's Rachel Martin that the project helped her refine her thoughts on how to write a novel.
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PATCHETT: "Bel Canto" is so far away...
RACHEL MARTIN: Yeah.
PATCHETT: ...That I could say, look, I'm stalling here. I can see myself stalling. Look, now it's getting faster, and it's getting better.
DETROW: Ann Patchett talked to Rachel on NPR's Wild Card podcast, where well-known guests answer big questions about their life drawn from a deck of cards. She reflected on her childhood and how her relationship with religion has changed.
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MARTIN: What's a place that shaped you as much as any person did?
PATCHETT: When I was a child, we lived on a farm for several years. It was in Ashland City about 30 minutes outside of Nashville. It was not a working farm. It was just a collection of absolute weirdness. My sister had a...
MARTIN: Oh, that kind of farm (laughter).
PATCHETT: No, that kind of farm - anyway, we had a couple of horses. We had a rabbit. We had chickens, which were all named after members of Nixon's cabinet.
MARTIN: (Laughter) Shut up.
PATCHETT: We had dogs, which meant that dogs would just go through, and they would stay for a couple of years - same with the cats. It was real country life.
MARTIN: Wow.
PATCHETT: And most importantly, I had a pig, which I got for my ninth birthday because I was obsessed with "Charlotte's Web." It was just a very animal laden, isolated life. And because I'm an introvert, that worked out fine for me. And childhood was - you would go outside and climb up a hill. I collected moss, lots of flowers. I actually had a moss business. I sold moss in town when I was about 10 to florists.
MARTIN: Wait, wait, wait. Other kids are, like, selling lemonade, and little Ann Patchett is like, some moss, sir.
PATCHETT: I'm in the moss trade.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
PATCHETT: You make a lot more money off a moss than you do lemonade, Rachel. And I remember my mother saying things like, remember the rattlesnakes are blind when they're molting. So if you get into the blackberry bushes, where the rattlesnakes go to shed their skins because they have those little, tiny thorns on the blackberry bushes, just be aware because they can't see you, so they're more likely to strike. That was the bedrock advice of my childhood.
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MARTIN: OK, three more cards.
PATCHETT: Three, I like three.
MARTIN: One, two, three. OK, three - how have your feelings about God changed over time?
PATCHETT: Oh, did you write that one for me?
MARTIN: No.
PATCHETT: Oh, OK. You know, it's a two-part thing. There's God, and then there's Catholicism, which I always say, Catholicism is to God what sorority is to college. It's - you know, for some people, it's everything. For some people, it's nothing. For other people, it's part of the experience. I still believe in God.
MARTIN: Do you?
PATCHETT: And here's the thing - if I tried to tell you what that meant, I would be wrong. The only thing that I know for sure is that whatever I know is wrong, and it does not behoove me to spend a moment's time thinking about it. We are alive, and that's an astonishing gift. And it seems very possible to me that being alive is God and that the trick is whether or not we know it. The trick is whether or not we can keep our focus and remember that we are, for all of the suffering, the recipient of the most beautiful gift for a limited period of time, which is our life.
MARTIN: I guess I'm interested in your preservation of the word God to define that. The word carries so much for me, but because of how I was raised, and so it feels very dramatic for me to say, I don't believe in God. But I guess I appreciate that you, even though you are no longer a Catholic and don't identify that way, that you...
PATCHETT: Yes, I do. Yeah.
MARTIN: You are? You still...
PATCHETT: I don't go to church, but I do still call myself a Catholic. Yes.
MARTIN: Why?
PATCHETT: Sorry to interrupt.
MARTIN: No, no, but that's even more interesting.
PATCHETT: I am still a Catholic, and there is in an enormous amount about Catholicism that I don't believe and am appalled by. I am still an American, and there is an enormous amount about being an American that I don't believe in and that I am appalled by. I am a Tennessean. There is an enormous amount about being a Tennessean that I don't believe in, and I am appalled by. But I am those things. And there are, about all of those things, parts that I love, and I'm proud of.
So when I was a sophomore at Sarah Lawrence, I had a humanism teacher. And it was a point in my life where I thought, I loathe Catholicism. I want nothing to do with this. This is just an anathema to everything of who I am and who I believe in, what I believe in. And I went out to dinner at the Raceway Diner, I remember, in Yonkers, with my humanism teacher. And I told him my problems. And he said, if you're going looking for something as big as God, just go where you're comfortable. Go with what you know - doesn't make any difference. You're not going to pick a better religion. You're not going to pick a better set of words. It's not about the words. It's not about the religion. Don't waste your time picking out your luggage. Just go on the trip.
MARTIN: Ann Patchett - her new annotated version of her best-selling novel, "Bel Canto," has just come out. I so appreciate having had the chance to do this with you.
PATCHETT: I so appreciate you inviting me on. Thank you so much.
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DETROW: You could follow NPR's Wild Card podcast to hear a longer version of that conversation.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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