Eddie disappears from Daphne’s life when she’s nine, and it takes forty years and a chance meeting in a museum for either of them to reclaim what they lost.
That gap sits at the centre of Ann Patchett’s Whistler. Daphne shared a love of stories with her stepfather Eddie, and the events that unfolded as they waited to be rescued from a car accident showed them how alike they were, and how much they each loved being truly seen by the other. But almost immediately after that event he vanished. Daphne buried the memory so completely she never even told her sister Leda it had happened.
As they spend time together again 40 years later, Daphne finally learns why he left, as she accompanies him to some funny, awkward social gatherings. She also spends time with her sister Leda, unpacking the story of the car accident and of Eddie telling the mystical story of Whistler the horse, from a manuscript he’d been reading just before it happened.
Eddie is the beating heart of the book, and part of what makes him so moving is how much he has simply accepted. He carries his losses without bitterness, and he isn’t someone to be pitied. He’s well-loved wherever he goes, and his lifelong work as an editor is deeply meaningful to him. A stoic philosophy runs underneath all of it. Life doesn’t go the way you plan, and people find their way regardless.
Ann Patchett’s own experience of having three fathers deepens this novel and makes it strikingly original. It’s a warm, humane novel to sink into, and one that leaves you glad for the people who bring out more of yourself, whenever and however they turn up.
