Book of the day: Whistler by Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett: Exploring serendipity, family and legacy. Photo / Getty Images
Daphne, 53, is walking through New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art with her husband Jonathan when they notice a white-haired older man following them. He trails them for a few floors until Jonathan insists on confronting the man, who turns out to be Daphne’s long-lost stepfather, Eddie Triplett.
It soon becomes apparent that although it covers some tricky themes, Whistler isn’t a psychological thriller, rather it’s almost cosy.
Daphne lives near New York and works as an English teacher at a private girls’ school. Her life – it seems to hold many similarities to the author’s – is comfortable and quiet with her sweet, older husband.
She jokingly brags that older men like her, she doesn’t wear make-up, “makes love”, and enjoys a simple dinner of watermelon in the backyard while sitting on her Adirondack chairs. Some might find her slightly insufferable and pick-me, but as the story unfolds it becomes clear that Daphne is brave, resilient and patient.
The story unfolds through conversations between Daphne and Eddie in the present and their recollections of their lives back in 1980. The pair knew each other for only two years when Daphne was a child, but each felt the other was a rare friend who saw them for who they truly were. The reader slowly learns of a life-changing car accident the pair endured and how that event shaped their futures.
Shortly after they are reacquainted, Daphne and Eddie attend a large party and it becomes clear they both live in a rarefied middle-upper-class American world. Readers are assumed to know what cocktail pyjamas, ranunculus and Sancerre are.
Later in the night, when Daphne and Eddie crash a wedding reception at a hotel that readers should probably have heard of, the scene is meant to be carefree and cute but will strike at least some readers as uncomfortably entitled.
Along with the unfolding of Daphne and Eddie’s friendship, Patchett deftly loops in details of Daphne’s relationship with her sister and mother, and Eddie’s relationship with his close college friend Trip.
The story also touches on Daphne’s husband’s life, his dead wife Candy, his daughters and how Daphne lives in a home adorned with Candy’s pictures.
Additionally, there is a beautiful story within a story, which Eddie relays to Daphne in 1980: the tale of a woman and her loyal horse, Whistler. Ghosts and trauma rear off the page but Eddie’s – and the novel’s – comforting, lilting tone ensures the reader is kept in wonder rather than terror. Patchett perfectly understands plot and pace, and knows how to pack a lot into one novel without it becoming convoluted.