Ann Patchett

That a lot of times in what I have seen, the problem isn't so much having your parents get divorced.

The problem is who those divorced parents bring into your life.

And so you can really wind up with a bad step parent or bad step siblings.

And I certainly have seen that happen.

And that's the crushing blow.

But.

I think it probably made me resilient, but it also made me very open-hearted with people.

My mother married three times, my father married twice, and I primarily grew up with cousins of my stepfathers who didn't have any children.

So that's a lot of parents.

And if one parent didn't come through, you know, that parent wasn't really good at listening or that parent wasn't good at advice or finances or whatever, you always had somebody else you could go to and talk to.

I had a vast pool of parents to work from.

And because of that, I wasn't really ever disappointed in any of them.

You know, if X didn't meet my needs, then Y probably would.

Did you have siblings?

I have a full sister and then I have a load of various stepbrothers and sisters who I am close to in varying degrees.

It is.

And my sister and I are incredibly close, although I will say...

I was in my late 30s before my sister and I were close.

We were not close growing up.

My sister absolutely could not stand me from the time I was born.