Whistler

Whistler ~ Ann Patchett

Daphne Fuller and her husband, Jonathan, are spending the afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, when they run into Eddie Tripplet, who was, for a brief time in her childhood, Daphne’s stepfather. Daphne and her sister Leda had three fathers – their biological father, Buddy, who probably should not have had children, his first love was the ocean; Eddie, who probably should not have married their mother; and Lucas, to whom Daphne never felt connected. Both Daphne and Leda have strong affection for Eddie, and consider the years with him in their lives to be the most stable.

As Daphne and Eddie reconnect, we discover that their bond is twofold. One, they are very similar people, and loved each other greatly from the beginning. Two, they were in a serious car accident when she was 9, an accident that precipitated the end of Eddie’s marriage to Daphne’s mother, Abigail. Daphne has locked a lot of these memories away, it is too painful to think of how absolutely Eddie was erased from their lives.

I loved this book so, so much. It brought up a lot of thoughts for me, though I have never had and lost a wonderful stepfather.

When my mom was pregnant with my older brother, she did not want his father involved in their life. He was a musician in San Francisco and was pretty involved in the drug scene. She instead married a good friend, who she told me she did love, who turned out to be gay. They could perhaps have had a good marriage had everything about both of them been different (a line from Whistler). When Eddie and Daphne reconnect, she is in her early 50s, he is 70, and he goes around introducing her to everyone as his daughter, and his love and pride are so evident. I first met my father when I was 21, and he later told my mom that he was like a new dad, showing strangers on the bus my picture and telling his story. I wouldn’t say that my story and Daphne’s parallel so much as the feelings that are brought up are on the same trajectory.

There is drama, but it’s gentle drama. There’s a car crash, but it’s all in the past so we know they survive. We know that Abigail and Eddie divorce, we just don’t know the whole story going in. There are no really bad people in this book, no abuse or cruelty. This is a story about impermanence, and the love that makes impermanence (almost) bearable. I loved this book so much, I read it three times. First I put it on hold to listen to via Libby, then I got impatient and bought a physical copy with a store credit I had at Bookstore.org, and I read that twice. Then when my Libby hold came in, I listened to it. Highly, highly recommended. (I thought, given the cover, that there would be more horses. It’s OK, the horses that are there are pretty darned good.)