Whistler

by Ann Patchett

The acclaimed, prize-winning #1 New York Times bestselling writer returns with a moving, luminous novel that reminds us of the sweetness and impermanence of life and the power of connection to defy time.

When Daphne Fuller and her husband Jonathan visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they notice an older, white-haired gentleman following them. The man turns out to be Eddie Triplett, her former stepfather, who had been married to her mother for a little more than year when Daphne was nine. Now fifty-three, Daphne hasn’t seen Eddie for many years, not since the fateful event that changed the direction of both their lives. Meeting again, time falls away; while their relationship was brief, it had a profound impact on them both, and now that they are reunited, they have no intention of ever being separated again.

Whistler is a story about two adults looking back over the choices they made, and the choices that were made for them. It’s a story about bravery, memory, the often small yet consequential moments that define our lives, and the endless stream of loss that in time comes for us all. Beautiful in its simplicity, it is ultimately about how love endures, and how the feeling of being known by one other person, even for a short period of time, can change everything.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Contemporary, Book Club, Family, Adult Fiction

304 pages, Hardcover

First published June 2, 2026

About the author

Patchett was born in Los Angeles, California. Her mother is the novelist Jeanne Ray.

She moved to Nashville, Tennessee when she was six, where she continues to live. Patchett said she loves her home in Nashville with her doctor husband and dog. If asked if she could go any place, that place would always be home. "Home is ...the stable window that opens out into the imagination."

Patchett attended high school at St. Bernard Academy, a private, non-parochial Catholic school for girls run by the Sisters of Mercy. Following graduation, she attended Sarah Lawrence College and took fiction writing classes with Allan Gurganus, Russell Banks, and Grace Paley. She later attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she met longtime friend Elizabeth McCracken. It was also there that she wrote her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars.

In 2010, when she found that her hometown of Nashville no longer had a good book store, she co-founded Parnassus Books with Karen Hayes; the store opened in November 2011. In 2012, Patchett was on the Time 100 list of most influential people in the world by TIME magazine.

Reviews

[Haley pham · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book felt like a hug. One of those novels so good, you forget to see the form of the novel. The scenes felt like tapes of real people talking.

[emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

i have a reason to live.

https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...

or i did, until i finished reading this book.

i did not want it to end.

i've enjoyed just about everything ann patchett has ever written, but she's been especially on one of late.

her novels are like a fantasy to me, a world nearly like our own, where people are imperfect and their actions can hurt but they are always, invariably, comprehensible to those who care to consider. they are unyieldingly trying their best.

these are worlds full of well-spoken, well-read, well-loved people, who carry their pasts with them but move forever forward. they live in cozy homes in interesting places. they have open hearts. to me, that is everything.

patchett writes with a skill and thoughtfulness essentially unparalleled. she brings kindness to literary fiction and literary quality to pleasurable reading.

this story of a woman's childhood returning to her adulthood, of paths greatly desired and unknown, of even regrets in their bitterness containing sweetness, of the unexpected loves of one's life...

i couldn't have appreciated it more.

bottom line: i am grateful for this book.

(thanks to libro.fm for the alc)
(read for a substack post)

[Brady Lockerby]

i genuinely have no idea how i feel about this book! i enjoyed the story and even more so, listening to Ann Patchett's narration of it, but something was... missing for me? i agree with every 5 star review i have read, although it doesn't feel like a 5 star for me personally. 3.5? that feels too low.. 4? easy way out.. maybe i'll just leave it un-starred!

[Liz Hein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I woke my husband up from a deep sleep to make him read the last paragraph of this. So here’s, a quick little personal review of Whistler…I’ll write a full and real review closer to its June publication.

Sometimes a book comes to you at the perfect time. I was sitting at the airport with my mom and husband last night, waiting to fly to our family in Texas for Thanksgiving. We ALWAYS host at my parents house; it’s my mom’s very favorite holiday. But we lost dad this year, and can’t fathom our normal routine without him. I had no idea Whistler was a father/daughter story, but I knew I loved Ann Patchett and something told me to just log into netgalley to see if maybe it had popped up, despite having tried to find it literally that morning and it wasn’t there.

I devoured this. The father daughter story isn’t like mine in most ways, but was exactly like mine in the ways I didn’t know I needed it to be. This book is so special to me for so many reasons, and again, I’ll share more later. For now, what I think you should know is that this book is nice and lovely in the ways Tom Lake was nice and lovely. And this book healed me in small ways I won’t forget.

[Canadian Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Patchett is like being tucked into a big comfy blanket on a cold day.
Her characters are authentic. Her stories hypnotic. An endearing quality that puts me into the Patchett trance.

Daphne randomly meets up with her once stepdad, Eddie, 40 years later. A chance encounter. He was briefly in that role for only 2 years but the memories of him she holds near and dear.
Whistler is the story of a horse. The story told during a precarious time for the two of them but a story that brought a mountain of emotions back. Fear of loss; of dying; of love. Whistler being a fierce connection to a tragic event that held as much fear as joy for those brief hours. A story that went untold for 40 years.

This is a quiet story of revelations. A reflection of familial relationships, messy ones, dotted line ones, and their complexities. It also speaks of the love that can be found when unburied.

A beautiful Patchett style story.
5⭐️

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

we ride at dawn for Eddie

[Angela M · Rating 5 out of 5]

“There were things I remembered now, including that particular longing that life could stay as it had been. How strange that such a pointless wish could resurface after all these years.” Still, Daphne Fuller at fifty three, imagines at times what life would have been like these last forty four years, had her mother not divorced her step-father Eddie and separated her from this man who she loves deeply. Reconnecting with Eddie after all those years turns out to be a beautiful thing for both of them as they relive the past, their indelible bond of love and shared trauma, and now can bask in the joy of finding each other again. Patchett reminds us, though that life is complicated, relationships are complex and families are messy.

In this novel marriages are made based on love, but unrealistic expectations make promises of good intentions impossible to keep in spite of the fact that the love remains. Ann Patchett does an extraordinary job at getting to the very heart of broken families and the effect on lives as time passes. She reminds us that things are not always as they seem and the whole story needs to be revealed. And so the story of this family unfolds, reflecting on the past, accepting the present and moving forward each day with the light of the revelations that tell of so much love.

I’ve read all of Ann Patchett’s novels and two memoirs and loved them all. Whistler is reminiscent of her more recent novels The Dutch House, Commonwealth, and Tom Lake , all of which focus on families . If you loved any of those, I think you’ll find that she once again establishes herself as a literary treasure.

I received a copy of this book from HarperCollins through Edelweiss.

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ann Patchett’s new novel, Whistler, is that loveliest of summer gifts, a story of reconciliation, of old affections renewed, of a family’s circumference enlarged. Fans of the author’s previous work will open these pages like an old shoebox of family photos. Newcomers — how I envy them those first moments — will discover a writer of gentle wit and quiet grace.

Whistler, Patchett’s 10th novel, may be her most essayistic and in that sense her most confident. This is a reflection on fatherhood largely unruffled by the exigencies of plot. You’ll wait in vain for the terror of Bel Canto or the thrills of State of Wonder. Yes, it contains a moment of real peril, but the sting of fear has been mellowed over time like onions caramelized by heat.

Whistler begins in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but unlike Donna Tartt’s novel The Goldfinch, the explosion that takes place is merely a chance encounter that blows away four decades of separation. One day while strolling through Modern and Contemporary Paintings, Daphne and her husband become aware that an older gentleman is following her. She’s not particularly....

Continue reading:
https://roncharles.substack.com/p/ann...

[Teres · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ann Patchett’s Whistler is a slim novel of roughly 300 pages, but boy, does it pack a wallop.

SO good.

Fifty-three-year-old Daphne Fuller spots an elderly stranger following her and her husband through the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The man turns out to be Eddie Triplett, her mother’s second husband, who vanished from Daphne's life when she was nine years old.

The story unfolds like a carefully preserved memory. Patchett cleverly employs a non-linear structure that mirrors the workings of memory itself.

The reader experiences Daphne and Eddie's reunion much as she does: fragments surface, contexts shift, and what seemed simple in childhood reveals itself as devastatingly complex from an adult perspective.

Eddie’s marriage to Daphne’s mother lasted barely 18 months, yet the bond he formed with his young stepdaughter proved more enduring than the legal ties that briefly made them family.

Patchett has created a moving story about how we carry those who mattered even after they’re gone. Proof that love and memory can traverse vast distances.

Love, even in its briefest iterations, endures.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazingly beautiful story!
Daphne Fuller is a married English Teacher who runs into Eddie Triplett, her favorite ex stepfather while she and her husband are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York… she has not seen him in 40 years.
They have a past together that includes a serious car wreck… she was only 9 yrs old at the time and soon afterward her mother divorced Eddie.
Seeing him again brings forth the feelings she had buried… of Eddie being the happiest part of her childhood, though his marriage to her mother was very brief.
She realizes that.. “Somewhere deep inside myself, in a place inaccessible to me since I was nine,” Daphne tells us, “I had missed him every day of my life.”
The story tells us more of the family’s story and the accident, and the recent reconciliation.
Just lovely… my very favorite Patchett novel that I have read so far!

[ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

i just love meandering family stories like this - i absolutely adored the last book i read by this author, and this one was no different. there’s something about her writing that just makes these characters feel so real. adored this!

[Rachel Hanes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished this book last night, and I still don’t know how to rate it properly. I loved the beautiful watercolor painting of the horse on the cover. I loved the story. I loved our two main characters of Daphne and Eddie. The writing was exceptional and profound. And yet… I’m still not connecting with this.

This story starts out with an older gentleman following Daphne and her husband, Jonathan, around at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, NY. This older gentleman turns out to be Eddie Triplett, who was once her stepfather. Eddie was married to Daphne’s mother for about a year, and after a traumatic event, he left when Daphne was nine years old. They have not been in touch since, and Daphne can’t believe he even recognized her.

Daphne, now 53 years old, and Eddie 76 years old, realize they would love to keep in touch as they have lost so much time together. The two reconnect and become very close. Eddie told Daphne a very special story when she was nine years old, and that story is one that seems to have bonded them together all this time. Others, including Daphne’s sister and husband are just now learning of this story, and how it came to be.

As I mentioned above, the writing in this story was impeccable- to the point where I even began to get teary eyed. As much as I loved the characters, I just couldn’t quite connect. Maybe it’s because I would never be able to (or want) to have a relationship with any of my mother’s exes (that’s a whole other story we don’t want to get into). And also, I feel that if over forty years have gone by, then that person has probably forgotten about me, and I feel like it would be like meeting a stranger again- even if you have shared a traumatic event together.
There’s been people who I haven’t seen in years, and when I do happen to run into them we will exchange pleasantries, promise to call each other or “keep in touch”, but we never do, because well, time has moved on and changed us.

I know this is a much loved book, and I did like it. But if I’m being honest, I don’t think that it is one that I would recommend. Because of that, I think I’m going to settle on three stars for my rating.

[Susan Meissner · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only thing I don’t like about an Ann Patchett book is coming to the end of it. She is the most gentle of storytellers but her themes are always so profound. She is a master at this gig. Lest you think the story is about a horse because of the cover, it bears saying that the story is about found family, and how we are shaped by the people that matter to us in our childhood. There is a horse, and there wouldn’t be a story without it, but the story is not about a horse. It’s about love.

[Bruce Katz · Rating 5 out of 5]

In September 2020, as the number of Covid fatalities climbed around the world, Ann Patchett published an article in The New Yorker with the title “My Three Fathers.” The autobiographical piece was about the three men her mother married over the course of her life and Ms Patchett’s very different relationships with each of them. Near the end of the article she wrote, “What’s so easy for me to see now that all of them are gone, what was so impossible for me to see at the time, was that they were only occasionally thinking of me, and I was only occasionally thinking of them. From each of the fathers I took the things I needed, and then I turned them into stories.”

Which is what she has done — at least as a framework and a starting point * — in her newest novel, “Whistler.” It’s a touching, insightful, revelatory story about the connections we form in our lives with others and what, despite everything, stays in our hearts through the passing years. It’s also about how difficult and complex our relationships with others can be and how little we understand of our own pasts.

The book’s protagonist is Daphne Fuller. She’s a writing teacher at a private girl's school to whom, inexplicably and interestingly, older men are drawn (“Old guys love me”). Her mother, like Ann Patchett’s, married three times. One day, Daphne and her retired hospital administrator husband Jonathan are spending a quiet afternoon walking through the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan when Jonathan leans in toward Daphne to tell her they’re being followed. Daphne thinks he's being ridiculous, but as it happens, they are being followed. Or more accurately, she is. The “old guy” following her is no stranger, he's her former stepfather Eddie Triplett, whom she hasn’t seen for almost 45 years. To her great surprise, Daphne begins to sob uncontrollably. “I hadn’t known there was something in me to break, but there was and break it did. I stepped into an open crack in time and fell backwards.” Fell backwards into a place she had put away somewhere in the back of her mind and forgotten: “For me, the past was a sinkhole. Not that it was terrible, but there was nothing for me there.”

Over the course of the novel, Daphne and Eddie renew their old relationship, which is a very different thing now that the bond is between two adults rather than between a child and an adult. As a young girl, Daphne had adored Eddie, shared a harrowing experience with him. The two of them had a very special bond. Then something happened and Eddie was gone.

“In the way of all children,” Daphne believed that the divorce was her fault. It wasn’t her fault, of course. Nor is her long-held belief that she had ruined Eddie’s life. As she and Eddie spend more time together she will learn that the memories she formed as a child and that shaped so much of her adult life were completely wrong. The dramatic events she remembers so vividly did not happen as she remembered them. It’s a difficult and emotionally draining process (“I’m too old to be nine again”) that forces her to feel things she hadn't felt before, reappraise a great many things about herself and others close to her, particularly because Eddie is dying.

As she gets to know the real Eddie — as he was and is — she is forced to face a lot of things about herself and those she is close to. One day she has a conversation with her sister Leda — a psychologist who writes a column called “Your Therapist” — in which the two of them discuss their childhood. Their mother, Leda says, “decided the past was happy and so she has no reason to think about it.” When Daphne asks where the two of them fit into that narrative, her sister’s response is direct: “ ‘We don’t,” she said.’"

(Daphne's relationship with her mother is a fascinating thread to follow in the book. Daphne will wonder,“Why did my mother always make me feel like a telemarketer calling to rope her into a time-share?” and make this observation: "I couldn't say exactly where childhood ends, but dealing with your pregnant mother at the age of thirteen was as good a place as any to wrap it up.")

I found “Whistler” to be a quietly powerful look at how memory works, how little we know about what makes others — and ourselves — act the way they do, the things that bind us to one another, and looking honestly into our past. In other hands it might have been maudlin or manipulative, but Patchett is at her best here. Truthfully, I want to say as little as possible about “Whistler” because inside Daphne's head as she learns about herself and her past is such a joy. Patchett rolls out the story with honesty, tenderness, and insight. I have to say, I identified with a lot in the book, not always comfortably. I believe others will too.

My deepest thanks to Harper Publishers and Edelweis+ for providing a free digital ARC in return for an honest review.


* In an interview with Publisher’s Weekly,” Ms Patchett spoke about her discomfort writing a novel about a character who had three fathers just as she did: “I thought, oh, I can’t do that, because people will think it’s me. But I decided, I don’t care what people think. It’s right for the book.”

[Meagan (Meagansbookclub) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️

Absolutely beautiful.

[Meike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Listen, you have to give it to Ann Patchett that she is an excellent writer of people and moods, and I see why so many readers describe this as a comfort read that fails to reach the depth of Patchett's classic bangers, but I also found "Whistler" so twee and somehow cutesy that I'm throwing in the towel at 53%. Patchett tells the story of Daphne, a married middle-aged teacher with three step dads who coincidentally runs into her favorite of the trio, a man she hasn't seen in many years - and only now does she discover the true reason why he and her mother got divorced.

So this is a family story, full of vivid characters, talking about mothers and daughters, siblings, husbands and wives, and how we can choose and lose the people we consider family. Nothing wrong with the character writing or the message, but it's a little shallow and unchallenging. Yes, we're all human and messy, but this is needs to develop more drive and punch to become really emotionally impactful - but then again, I require a certain degree of unsettlement to be really impressed by fiction, and this is not what Patchett aims to do here, I think she wants to hug her readers and cover them in a warm blanket of a story about love and forgiveness and second chances.

And that's too much for me by way of being not enough.

[Leah Darnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beautiful story where nothing happens. It’s great writing but definitely can be missed.

[Terrie R · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daphne and Jonathan Fuller notice an older gentleman following them during an afternoon visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. Daphne eventually recognizes him as Eddie Triplett, her former stepfather who was married to her mother until she was nine years old. They haven't seen each other in almost 45 years, separated after an incident that changed the trajectory of both their lives.

When Daphne hears Eddie's voice, she cries. She never cries. Eddie calls her "Duck", and she feels herself break and fall backward in time. They both knew from that moment on, they would never lose touch with each other again...

Whistler is the only book I've read that made my eyes well with tears after reading the last sentence of the first chapter. What a way to start a book, but it didn't end there. Patchett's beautiful prose continued to surprise me throughout. This is the only novel I've read by this author that I love. I read and rated The Dutch House 2⭐, and Tom Lake 3⭐, not feeling a connection to the writing or the story in either book. This was a breakthrough read for me with this author, and I felt giddy during and after I finished.

I read the DRC while listening to the audiobook with Ann Patchett’s perfect narration that was surprisingly animated. She made all these characters feel believable to me, and I longed for a relationship like the one Daphne had with Eddie. This is a book you should read and listen to for all the highlighting you'll do, and for the wonderful narration you'll hear. The combination is a memorable immersive reading experience.

Whistler is my favorite book of this year so far. Looking at the beautiful cover reminds me to mention the horse of the same name who has a small part in the story, but a significant importance and a deep connection between the two main characters, Daphne and Eddie. All the pieces and parts of this story make me smile from ear to ear with the love and joy of reading. Corny, but true!

5⭐

Thank you to Harper and Ann Patchett for the gifted DRC through NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.

[Maxwell]

Ann Patchett is a natural storyteller. Her books flow with such ease and the characters come to life in such vivid detail but it all feels effortless, like you and your sweet nextdoor neighbor sharing a cup of lemonade on the patio on a warm summer's day and conversing about life, death, family, regrets, hopes, dreams. This one felt the most sentimental of all of her books I've read to date, and I really liked that aspect of it--watching a woman in her 50s reconnect with a part of her life that felt lost to her and all the emotions and feelings that stirs up. It felt like a gift Patchett hands to the reader, saying, "Sometimes we need to look back in order to move forward, and that's okay."

[Karen.J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 ⭐️

I listened to this wonderful audiobook, such a beautiful and heartfelt story. Written by Ann Patchett and narrated by Ann Patchett.

[Lauren W -behind! (work)- trying to stay semi-caught up♥︎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great story. Such heart. The connection between Eddie and Daphne is absolutely beautiful. Eddie is truly a lovely, genuine person who cares about the stories in a person's life—the 'why's.' After many years, he finds his way back to Daphne, his former stepdaughter. This connection transcends time spent apart, and they easily pick back up and champion each other's existence.

This book beautifully highlights the importance of bonds with animals, random chance encounters, overcoming traumatic life events, and the rare gift of truly being seen and known by someone.

Somehow, this is my first Ann Patchett story, but it certainly won't be my last. I walked away from this one feeling a calm warmth and a deeper appreciation for life and those special, rare connections we are gifted with.

[Tracy Greer-Hansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️ rounding down to 4!
A beautiful read as always.

This was one of my most anticipated reads this year. I do love me an Ann Patchett book.

As always, there are characters you fall in love with and the writing was beautiful. I think the thought that was most impressed upon me, is how a connection with someone can be lifelong. No matter the length of the relationship; whether you go in different paths. People can leave a handprint on your heart.

Sadly, I can not give this 5 stars. I found the ending abrupt and it did not match up to other books of her that I adore.

I still have not visited Parnassus books in Nashville….Ann’s bookstore. Perhaps one day…..

[emilybookedup · Rating 4 out of 5]

i liked this! prob as not as much as TOM LAKE but it gave similar vibes to me. the author narrated this audiobook and i enjoyed her narration too🎧

this book is for fans of family drama and also plots where the MC learns something about their past that changes everything. it was such a unique story and is really hard to explain without spoiling, but it was entertaining for sure. i loved following all the characters (esp the main 2!) through these revelations as they were working to almost rewrite and process the last 40+ years with things they thought to be true but weren’t. that would be…challenging to say the least!!

the genre is a litfic fam drama. it’s not a romance by any means. the characters im talking about are a woman and her stepdad!

you know “the last meeting theory?” it suggests that once two people have served their purpose in each other's lives (teach a lesson, offer friendship, fall in love, etc) the universe quietly ensures your paths never cross again. this book kind of felt like that… but like, these two characters were meant to cross paths again and they did, even after 40+ years (maybe 50?!).

this book was also happy (to me!). it was fun to listen to adults heal and find happy endings and peace with their past. i feel like you don’t often get that in books these days—it was just an all around feel good book to me. was their childhood trauma to overcome? yes, but…you’ll see! it’s overall really happy!

TLDR: go in blind and expect to fall in love with these characters as they rewrite their past.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you to Harper for the ARC. This was an incredibly character-driven story about a woman in her 50s connecting with her ex-step father after 44 years apart. The story is basically a bunch of recollections of the past and the main character randomly remembering events that she had blocked out from when she was 9. Nothing really happened so I didn’t like this at all. Also, why do authors insist on writing stories where queer people only know how to lie and cheat? It’s getting so old.

[Diane Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not even going to try to review this. I'll just say it's a damn good book with relatable characters that you'll love, interlaced with a few little nuggets of wisdom along the way. Isn't that why we love Ann Patchett in the first place?

She's done it again.

[Jodi · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐-star book about the love between a step-father and his step-daughter who, after a 40-year absence, serendipitously find each other again.💕

Eddie had been married to Daphne’s mother and lived with the family for a little over a year when Daphne was just 9 years old. But after a year, Daphne’s mother divorced Eddie after claiming she’d lost trust in him. This followed a car accident when Eddie picked Daphne up from school one winter afternoon. It became dark quite early, he missed a curve and drove off the snowy road, down a forested embankment until the car came to rest upside-down, leaving them trapped and stranded overnight. During those long, traumatic hours, they held each other close, tried to keep each other warm and comfortable, told each other stories, and formed a lifelong bond that would be unbreakable.🧑🏼‍👧🏻

Once Eddie was banished from their lives, they all continued on but Eddie and Daphne were forever changed by the short time they'd spent together. When they run into each other many years later, each hopes they can hang on and never let go.

I highly recommend this book which, IMO, is among Patchett’s very best! And if you want to know the meaning of the title and the cover of the book, you’ll have to read it!😉

5 “Though–we–may–not–share–the–same–blood,–we–will–always–share–the–same–love” stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Brooke Lona · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daphne Fuller is a middle-aged woman whose career revolves around books. She has had three fathers, she never had children of her own, and she married someone who works in healthcare. In other words, Daphne Fuller is Ann Patchett.

I genuinely just could not get these parallels and the autobiographical elements out of my head while I was reading - it felt like I was just reading her life story, like in These Precious Days.

I also generally love Ann Patchett (which is why i'm sad about this 🥲) but in this book her writing style really struck me as if she were trying too hard to be understanding with all of the characters. Daphne states that she has negative feelings towards some of the characters, but I didn't feel that come through in the writing. Her writing style is soft and comforting, and I just don't know if that fully conveys the message of this story in the most impactful way.

[Rain · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4.5* This is a quiet, character-driven novel about blended families, and human mistakes. It's also about the memories we cling to, and the lies and misdirection we convince ourselves are necessary.

The characters were authentic, flawed, and painfully real. Nearly everyone seemed to hold a little piece of themselves back, even from the people they loved most. I guess that's probably true of most of us.

Woven in the novel is the story of a fictional mare named Whistler. She appears only during a retelling of a story, but Whistler is a beautiful symbol of hope. For me, Eddie is Daphne's Whistler, returning to her life (after decades) and helping her recover a lost part of herself.

It's thoughtful and reflective, but also slightly depressing. I felt for Polly (even if she was problematic). Spending 50 years married to a gay man, while he carried on a lifelong love affair with someone else, was heartbreaking. Did she know? This was certainly during a different era, but I got the feeling she spent a lot of time inside her own head to cope. And Eddie, poor Eddie, he deserved better than Skip.

There weren't any villains here, just people making imperfect choices and living with the consequences.

This isn't a plot-heavy novel and has a deep underlying sadness. I’m really glad I read it, but I don’t know that I would ever want to read it again.

[Dee (in the Desert) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars, rounded up! "Whistler" is a WINNER! Despite the horse cover, this book is really about a mid-life, married teacher who reunites with one of her step-fathers with whom she shared a traumatic event, barely remembered, both by her & her family. It's again all about the human condition - love, loss, and self-worth - and with a hard look at how we grown up and stories both told & untold. The author has a background of having a stepfather or two herself, but how much of this is personal, she doesn't share, but I always really enjoy Patchett - a good author and a bookseller too. The novel was also quite quick & easy to read - always a bonus. Really grateful too that my library was able to provide me a copy on pub. day and highly recommend.

[Snjez · Rating 2 out of 5]

The beginning seemed promising. I liked the bond between Daphne and Eddie and I liked Daphne’s husband, Jonathan. As the story went on, it started dragging for me and became dull, and also really depressing. I can see why some readers loved it, but it’s not my cup of tea.

The audiobook is narrated by the author. Her narration is really slow, which can be fixed, but it doesn’t flow naturally. It sounds like she’s telling the story rather than giving a voice to the characters, and sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between them.

Read for the Goodreads Summer Challenge (Chart Toppers)