My Goodreads and Amazon review of Whistler: A Novel by Ann Patchett (Rated 5 – Surprise and Inevitability. Whistler: A Novel by Ann Patchett is a small quiet book about the big noisy subject of love. Love in its infinite combinations, between parents and children, spouses, siblings, humans and animals, people and their work. Love that boasts its presence and the love that “dare not speak its name.” Love that calls to us and, like Whistler, the horse of the book’s title, shows up to save us. Patchett creates unforgettable characters. Life has been kinder to some than others, yet each finds a way to survive. Some are instantly endearing: Protagonists Daphne and Eddie, a middle-aged woman who accidentally meets the stepfather who abruptly left the family when she was nine; Daphne’s considerate and down-to-earth husband Jonathan. Others, like Daphne’s birth father Buddy, set up to be villains, turn out to be mensches. And even the real baddies, Eddie’s overbearing friends Skip and Polly, merit sympathy as victims of the social norms that force people into compromising roles they wouldn’t have chosen for themselves. Patchett creates a network of ties among people brought together by chance whose relationships nevertheless feel meant to be. As a novelist myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire her ability to make surprise and inevitability coexist on the page. Whistler is a satisfying and deceptively deep book.
Rekindling a lost love
Why writers read: “A good book is an event in my life.” – Stendhal
