But you write that what you loved was finding someone who sees you as your best and most complete self and that she did that for you, and you think you did that for her. Maybe Niki was right about my life being different, but maybe thats because I tend to think of things in terms of story: I pick up a book and read it late into the night, and because I like the book, I wind up on a flight to D.C. Id written a childrens book and was about to go on tour. She was checking email or trying to make notes. Dionne Warwick came in with her son. "Let's go back to the hotel. Were just reading. She told me how lovely it had been to lay down the burden of her own vigilance. I think about all the people who would want her to live with them. Figuring out Nashville was small potatoes for someone who had put together a Thanksgiving dinner for a film crew in Berlin. You dont think this is crazy?, I didnt say that, but I know youre trying to help Sooki.. The day I picked up Sooki from the airport in February she told me she would need to buy dry ice for Wednesdays. Would it even work? Its like youre going home to the Ukraine for the first time in ten years, I said as we loaded up coolers and bags. There was no hesitation on the canvases, no timidity. What Sooki is, Tom wrote to me in an email later, is all that is good in the world.. This storywhich begins and beginsstarts again here. No empty spiritual space. But of course I was the one who took everything. Hey, how are you? 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A writers life is by definition one of solitude, but Patchett, perhaps more than others, appears determined to wrest incident out of the random details of her busy life as an A-list writer and advocate for independent bookstores. It has to be one of the most extraordinary stories of lockdown how Tom Hanks's assistant Sooki Raphael, undergoing treatment for recurrent pancreatic cancer, came to be living in the. In other essays, Patchett extols the enduring influence of John Updike, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth on her own writing; meditates on her friendship with Charlie Strobel, a priest in Nashville whom she calls a living saint; and tries to capture the flavor of her odd-couple relationship with her second husband, Karl, immortalized in the title essay of an earlier collection, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. As a medical doctor on staff at the Nashville hospital where Raphael was treated for advanced pancreatic cancer, he plays a crucial role in These Precious Days., Finally, theres that essay. Karls cousin was visiting from New Mexico, sleeping in the other guest room. I think about you often and hope for the best. This was what marriage must look like from the other side. He agreed, and then kept finding reasons to go to work anyway. I thought about how extraordinarily famous you would have to be to have someone like that working as your assistant. I wanted to say hello very quietly so as not to bother her. Ive had a happy life because of her.. I promised to call when it was over. The car I was locked into was now hurtling down through a million winking flagella, every one a different color. These Precious Days by Ann Patchett reviewed. I was happy, even thrilled, to stop traveling. I am hopeful and feeling radical. Its too weird., There is no weirdness left between us, I said. One more reason to like Tom Hanks: hes a reader. (He also flies a Cessna plane, which comes in handy when Sookis mother is taken into hospital in New York.) While other people were left to worry about a virus that may or may not have been coming for them, I worried about Sooki. KELLY: My conversation this past fall with author Ann Patchett about her latest book "These Precious Days. She was an expert in dealing with the medical system, after all. View Sooki Raphael's business profile as TH Assistant at Playtone. So it really was what they said, a definitive spiritual experience? Shed seen people. I finally asked her to write down the phone numbers of her husband and son and daughter, telling her that if she got sick, if she were in the hospital unexpectedly, Id need to know how to get a hold of them. PATCHETT: Every single thing was from scratch. assistant: Tom Hanks - as Sookie Raphael: Cloud Atlas: 2012: assistant: Mr. Hanks - as Susan 'Sooki' Raphael: Game Change: 2012: TV Movie assistant: Mr. Hanks: Larry Crowne: 2011: assistant: Mr. Hanks: Big Love: 2006-2011: TV Series assistant - 48 episodes: The Pacific: 2010: TV Mini-Series assistant - 7 episodes: Where the Wild Things Are: 2009: assistant: Tom Hanks: Angels & Demons: 2009: assistant: Mr. Hanks: City of Ember: 2008: assistant: Mr. Hanks Theyd fallen on the mailboxes. Theres a grain of truth in, Short term rentals have become a source of income for some property owners in the Santa Monica Mountains and a source of aggravation for others,, Theres a special place just a few miles up the coast, where whales, dolphins, and sea lions swim close to shore, where you can watch. Sooki thought about it, or she thought about having to tell me. You all did a book event. He read several articles while I waited. He shook his head. They clearly didnt understand she intended to walk, though knowing Sooki, she probably could have carried it. The most important human qualities were being applied to this form. No, its wonderful having her here.. It's about Patchett's unexpected friendship with Sooki Raphael, Tom Hanks' personal assistant, which developed when Raphael underwent chemo treatment while living at Patchett's house in Nashville at the start of the pandemic. Haldane: a great public servant, much maligned, If you spent a day at Action Park you took your life in your hands, Finally: Diamond and Silk are releasing a book, Where are the scents of yesterday? Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process. PATCHETT: Right. Where I was going was death. Patchett writes. Still, I wanted to double-check. This was what we did at the end of the day. We waited. At her first meeting with Hanks, Patchett also met his personal assistant, Sooki Raphael, whose unusual evening coat, its huge peonies . Tell me how you know her again? he asked. I couldnt muster whatever it would have taken to follow her, but I could hear the music fine from where I was, Greckis Symphony No.3, Arvo Prt, pieces I had loved and would love no more. I asked her whether she had ever been to Nashville before, and she said yes, once, with Tom a long time ago. Curiosity is the rock upon which fiction is built. I was impressed that first day when the therapists swarmed the table forming the mold around me and explaining about tattoos. I told her, of course, that she would stay with us. I worried about her dying. She doesnt have to go to India. Find contact's direct phone number, email address, work history, and more. She had made up her mind that it was going to be okay. Finally she went downstairs. I cant thank her enough for how she raised me and because it was her who gave me all of that, um, spiritually, she, she just filled my heart with love and joy. I presented him with the studies from Johns Hopkins. Sooki had brought her computer with her. Direct flights to Los Angeles had been suspended, and even if shed wanted to fly to Dallas to wait and see whether the connecting flight would be canceled (because thats what happened now), her weekly blood draws underscored the fact that she scarcely had enough white cells to qualify for chemo, much less protect her from a pandemic while on a commercial flight. Join The Spectator community and view or post a comment on this article. (I say this as someone who is spending my days trying to write about our friendship and what happened here. And you will be surprised by how comforting it is to be very sick with an actual doctor upstairs. I laughed. Most recently, she had a solo exhibition of paintings at ROSEGALLERY called These Precious Days, just like Patchetts title essay. My mother was a pilot, Sooki said, and there she was, suddenly at ease. I want to meet Tom Hanks, she said. If there were too many people there, you managed to crop them out. It turned out to be more or less the truth. Pay I paid the check. I had just finished my latest novel, and on a lark of the highest order, I sent him an email asking if he might record the audiobook. My doctor paired up some words I never thought I would hear together: pancreatic cancer and youre in remission! It seems like an early declaration, but Ill take it! Never. I woke up the dog and the three of us left in the darkness. For them the mystery is solved by the act, and I understand that; its just not the way I work. And who wouldnt be given the fact that Raphael didnt really emerge as an artist until her pancreatic cancer diagnosis in November 2018. I wouldnt have had this time with you and Karl. Ann had only briefly met Sooki Raphael, Tom Hanks' personal assistant for over two decades, at an author event, but after learning Sooki was in treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer and hoping to be included in a proposed Los Angeles clinical trial, the author devised a plan. I tried it but it didnt work. I cant sleep through it.. Except it was Sooki, and I liked her very much. Shes married, I said. I said good luck because there was nothing else to say. I could already see her tumbling down the street. It made her crazy not to be there to help. He said they were running more trials for pancreatic cancer than Sloan Kettering. All day long Sooki emailed me pictures of her family with the subject line Where is our other sister? She went inside to see for herself. Didnt he know? Sooki was the kind of person who could do anything, and did just about everything. Many were introduced to Sooki Raphael through Ann Patchett's book, "These Precious Days" There Sooki's grace, creativity and strength were immortalized though Ann's words. At any point in life. Copyright 2023 SurvivorNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved. When Patchett connected with Tom Hanks, who is a fellow author and book lover (among other things! But she could. Forget about the heartfelt letters. And I think that that's the best thing we can possibly do." At Harper 's Ann Patchett spins the tale of her unexpected and deep friendship with Sooki Raphael who worked as a personal assistant to Tom Hanks: "Come on, Sooki," [Hanks] said, his voice gone grand. It's an unforgettable story. She became interested in urban animals. PATCHETT: It really is. Every childhood is strange in its own way. Karl is not waiting on a thank-you note, I promise. Karl is a doctor, but Sooki had been treated at UCLA, Stanford, Duke, and Memorial Sloan Kettering. In return, she sent me pictures shed taken of Los Angeles, a woman in an orange sari sailing past a city bus on a bicycle. Id spent two hours on a stage talking to Tom Hanks, and now I wanted to talk to Sooki. Patchett's good-hearted nature is on full display in the title essay of her new book, a portrait of her friend Sooki Raphael, the personal assistant of Tom Hanks. When we got home from our walk, I emailed Sooki and said that if she wanted Karl to check on the possibility of a trial in Nashville she should send her medical records. And that was that. I am a huge fan of your work (and Toms, of course) and it just thrills me that you are collaborating on this! At what point does our understanding of the action shift? Most days I went to work at Parnassus for several hours, filling boxes. They were lucky and the fire skated past. New book of essays tells story. She painted her granddaughter striding through a field of her own imagination, she painted herself wearing a mask, she painted me walking down our street with such vividness that I realized I had never seen the street before, Patchett wrote. Plans were made for Sooki to come to Nashville. These months of exercise would save me. PATCHETT: I really, really appreciate that. When I was very nearly at the end, I came to a beautiful lake, the kind youd see on a Japanese postcard, or my imagined picture of a Japanese postcard. End of the action shift business profile as TH assistant at Playtone find contact & # x27 ; s profile... Kelly: my conversation this past fall with author Ann Patchett about her latest book `` These Precious Days just... Think about all the people who would want her to live with them I presented him with medical! Except it was Sooki, and there she was checking email or trying to write about our friendship what... 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