“Whistler” by Anne Patchett (Harper Collins Publishers, 304 pages)
Anne Patchett’s “Whistler” is a marvelous novel and, while I suspect many of you have read it, I can’t help but push the word out to those who haven’t yet found the time. Patchett is at the top of her game here telling the story of middle-aged Daphne Fuller who during a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with her husband encounters Eddie Triplett, the man who had briefly been her stepfather as a child and with whom she has had no contact for well over 40 years. Triplett and her mother divorced shortly after Daphne and Eddie were in a car accident, an event with long-ranging implications. The accident and its aftermath is revealed both in flashbacks and current recollections. As Daphne and Eddie reconnect, the novel explores the meaning of family, the power of memory, and the intensity of childhood bonds, however brief.
Anne Patchett runs a terrific book store in Nashville called Parnassus Books and if you’re ever in the neighborhood check it out. If you can’t make it there in person, Parnassus Books’ instagram (@parnassusbooks) features visiting authors and all types of book recommendations from Patchett and her staff (children, YA, fiction, non-fiction) — it’s one of my go-tos.
Edna Lewis is a Piedmont resident and former longtime reference librarian at the UC Berkeley Law Library