Summary

​​In the introduction, "Essays Don't Die," Patchett remembers the way writing her first three novels made her think "about [her] own death" (1). Because she "didn’t have outlines or notes,” she feared that her characters would disappear if she were to die while writing (1). She wonders if essays “don’t die” like novels, because they are based upon facts instead of imagination (4).

In "Three Fathers," Patchett describes the marriages in her family. She and her sister have married twice and her mother has married three times. All three of Patchett's fathers, Frank, Mike, and Darrell, attended her sister's second wedding. Patchett attended with her second husband, Karl. She remembers navigating her fathers' moods during the event.

Later, her fathers would die "in the order in which [her] mother had married them" (10).

Patchett's parents divorced when she was young. Then she...