Despite Patchett's Catholic-school good girl-ness, there is no getting around that she's smart and very tough. I bought this book in the airport; it got me through a long day of travel delays followed by another long day of taking a relative to the ER. It was the perfect counterpoint to the inanity of dealing with multiple bureaucracies: thoughtful, humane. I particularly liked the essay about Patchett's "three fathers": the three men who married her mother and her relationship with them over the course of her life.