Ann Patchett has a new novel coming this summer, and she enlisted some star power for its audiobook version.

Patchett announced the book in a video posted to the Twitter account of Parnassus Books, the Nashville, Tennessee, bookstore she owns.

“I wrote a new book,” she says. “It’s called Tom Lake. You want to know the weirdest thing about this book? I wrote it entirely on a treadmill desk. All of it I wrote while walking.…It’s about the play Our Town; it’s set on a cherry orchard in Michigan at the beginning part of the pandemic.”

The novel, she goes on to say, follows three daughters who return to their parents’ orchard and ask their mother to tell the story of the summer when she appeared in Thornton Wilder’s famous play as a young woman.

Patchett is one of the country’s most admired authors. She won the PEN/Faulkner Award and Orange Prize (now called the Women’s Prize) for her 2001 novel, Bel Canto, and her last book, the essay collection These Precious Days, was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize.

“Here’s the big news,” Patchett says at the end of the video, “Meryl Streep is going to do the audiobook.”

Tom Lake is scheduled for publication by HarperCollins on Aug. 8.

Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.