Commonwealth

by Ann Patchett

The priest, whose mind was wandering like the Jews in the desert, tried to focus again on his sermon: Beverly Keating went to the liquor cabinet, which she had not restocked for the christening party, and what she found there was a third of a bottle of gin, a nearly full bottle of vodka, and a bottle of tequila that Fix’s brother John had brought back from Mexico last September which they had never opened because neither one of them knew exactly what to do with tequila. She carried the bottles to the kitchen, at which point the neighbors who lived on either side of their house and the neighbors across the street and three of the people who lived near Incarnation offered to go home and see what they had in their own cabinets, and when those neighbors returned it wasn’t just with bottles but oranges. Bill and Susie came back with a pillowcase full of fruit they’d run home to pick, saying they could go back and get three pillowcases more: what they gave to the party hadn’t made a dent.

Here's a wonderful paragraph. It's representative of why Ann Patchett's novels are so compelling. She doesn't describe her characters' personalities. She outlines their behavior and we know their personalities.