Whistler by Ann Patchett
Do not be misled by the cover portrait of a horse or the title of bestselling author Ann Patchett’s latest book Whistler. In fact, the story is not an equestrian tale like Bagnold’s National Velvet, O’Hara’s My Friend Flicka, or Brooks’ Horse, per se.
Rather, Daphne Fuller, a mid-fifties English teacher at an elite Upper East Side girl’s school, is spending the day with her husband Jonathan at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. An older gentleman is stalking them, and much to Daphne’s surprise, the stranger is no stranger. It is her charming stepfather, Eddie Triplett, whom she has not seen since she was nine years old — forty-four years ago — when her mother divorced him after a brief marriage.
This chance encounter leads Daphne on a journey of self-discovery, as she recalls a catastrophic event, which tore Eddie away from her. While her mother has been married three times, most recently to a self-help guru, it was her mother’s second marriage to Eddie that resonated with Daphne as a child. Those idyllic days with Eddie lived in the recesses of her memories as the happiest days of her childhood. They were kindred spirits, drawn together by their love of literature (Eddie is a book editor) and their similar philosophies on life. And Daphne had often wished Eddie had been her biological father, rather than the burly Maine fisherman Buddy, who remained a shadow in her life and that of her younger psychiatrist sister, Leda.
Her mother Abigail’s secretiveness about her own life and Eddie’s part in her life left Daphne and Leda with questions that plagued them since they were kids. While Leda and Jonathan provided stability in her life, until her reunion with Eddie, Daphne felt a void in her life without knowing its origin. Now, with Eddie’s reentry into their lives, she realizes it was Eddie all along. His stories and reappearance inspire Daphne to examine the past while dealing with the present — her mother’s current third marriage and new family, her own marriage, her relationship with long-deceased Buddy, and her family’s relationships to one another and the world around them.
A Family Mystery Unfolds
Every time Ann Patchett writes a novel, it is a gift to the reader, tied up with a colorful bow. The exterior paper is her beautiful prose. The container box is the unique plot that anchors the structure of the story, and the present hidden inside is her creation of wonderful, believable characters who bare their souls.
From the first page, Whistler draws the reader into a complicated, yet witty, family drama about people who have forgotten the past, such as Abigail, who recounts her brief marriage to Eddie: “If you don’t have children with someone, the marriage doesn’t count.” Abigail is the sun around whom all the characters, including Daphne, rotate. She is a mother who withholds her love from her daughters while lavishing it on her sons with her latest husband, Lucas. In denial about Eddie’s importance in her life and her daughters’, she forgets that for a short time, he offered them stability, which she could not and refused to provide.
Loss and Redemption
Abigail’s indifference weighs heavily on Daphne, who has carried that burden her entire life, until Eddie’s reappearance. He becomes the Greek Choir in Daphne’s life, filling in the gaps in her memory and her conscience and giving dimension to her understanding of her mother and herself.
In this book of Daphne’s self-discovery, the reader discovers how insignificant incidents can change the course of a life. And while not an equine-centric narrative, how a horse named Whistler miraculously saved his owner’s life and our protagonist’s.
Once again, in Whistler, Patchett has woven a rich, complex saga of love and loss destined to become a novel not to be missed.
About Ann Patchett:
Ann Patchett is the author of novels, most recently the #1 New York Times bestselling Tom Lake, works of nonfiction, and children’s books. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the PEN/Faulkner, the Women’s Prize for Fiction in the UK, and the Book Sense Book of the Year. Her novel The Dutch House was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages, and Time magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. President Biden awarded her the National Humanities Medal in recognition of her contributions to American culture. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is the owner of Parnassus Books.
