Ann Patchett writes about fathers, grief and New York in her most intimate novel yet

At the caller glitzy PEN Ameerica Literary Gala astatine the Natural History Museum successful New York City the evening’s MC, B.J. Novak, declared that the assemblage was determination to observe much than conscionable state of code — they were determination for “literary glamour.”

“Writing is glamorous,” helium declared. “Reading is glamorous.”

For Novak, bestselling novelist Ann Patchett — who has besides worked tirelessly connected behalf of autarkic booksellers and successful enactment of her chap writers, and was 1 of the event’s honored guests — epitomizes that allure. “I deliberation it’s large that Ann Patchett is simply a fume show. She doesn’t person to be,” helium quipped. “It’s conscionable chill that she is.”

With “Whistler,” Patchett’s 10th novel, she definitively proves that the “smoke show” moniker, if astatine each relevant, is icing connected the cake. This exquisite writer has erstwhile again delivered an incandescent enactment of fabrication — sweet, but ne'er sentimental, infinitely omniscient and suffused with love. It’s besides an ode to New York City itself.

“Whistler” is narrated by protagonist Daphne Fuller, a 54-year-old English teacher joined to Jonathan, a restlessly retired doc and infirmary head who dotes connected his woman and whom helium regards arsenic “extraordinary.” When we archetypal brushwood the couple, they’re roaming the Metropolitan Museum of Art — which, 1 gets the sense, they cognize by heart. As Daphne ponders the sculpture “Two Horses,” by Charles Ray, Jonathan spots an aged alien eyeing his wife, casting glances successful her direction. The alien follows them from country to country fixated connected Daphne. Jonathan’s curiosity is piqued, and helium slips distant from his wife’s broadside to get to the bottommost of wherefore they’re being followed — which is revealed to beryllium the novel’s inciting incident.

Turns retired that alien is nary alien astatine all. He is Eddie Triplett, a long-lost stepfather whose divorcement from Daphne’s mother, Abigail, remains an unhealed wound. Running into Eddie present for the archetypal clip successful much than 4 decades, Daphne is startled by the unreserved of emotion she feels: “I hadn’t known determination was thing successful maine to break,” she reflects, “but determination it was and interruption it did. I stepped into an unfastened ace successful clip and fell backwards.”

Eddie, arsenic it happens, is but 1 of Daphne and her sister, Leda’s, 3 dads. By the clip Abigail marries her 3rd husband, mild-mannered Lucas, and the mates spell connected to person 3 sons, Daphne has grown a protective shell. These facts are narrated with detachment by the protagonist herself. As she and Eddie mildly unspool their memories and unneurotic capable successful the blanks, their enslaved deepens. The “falling backwards” Daphne experiences successful Eddie’s institution — traversing clip — soothes, softens and delights her.

As the caller unfolds, what becomes ever clearer is that Daphne and her writer are undeniably similar, though Patchett has observed: “I americium usually cautious to marque definite determination is simply a large partition betwixt my beingness and my fiction.” In “Whistler,” she throws that caution to the wind. Easter eggs are scattered throughout. Like Daphne, Patchett is joined to an older antheral — besides a doc — whom she adores. She excessively had 3 dads, arsenic she chronicled successful a 2020 New Yorker portion aptly titled “My Three Fathers.” Patchett and her heroine besides look to stock this enviable trait: They navigate beingness with grace, generosity and utter competence. IRL, Patchett returns emails connected the time she receives them, is an outspoken advocator for escaped expression, is mostly renowned for her bully deeds. She’s besides wide known for her galore devoted friendships, though she doesn’t endure fools. You’d privation to beryllium her thrust oregon die. As you would … Daphne.

In an interrogation 10 years ago, Patchett observed that it wasn’t until she work a portion by Jonathan Franzen, “in which helium insisted that the novelist had to bash what scares him most, and for him, that had been penning astir his family,” that she considered pursuing that way successful her fiction. “I thought ‘oh thing would scare maine more. I would happily thrust down the Amazon successful a canoe and woody with snakes’ ” (as she did for “State of Wonder”) “ ‘than look my family.’ ” In 2016 she wrote “Commonwealth,” which drew connected her idiosyncratic acquisition of divorcement and dysfunction, themes she revisits successful “Whistler.” But successful “Whistler,” it’s arsenic if Patchett herself is successful the reader’s ear. (And, by the way, should you prime up the audio mentation of the book, she narrates and is virtually successful your ear.) .)

Patchett has said she had an ulterior motive for penning “Whistler.” She’d been successful the midst of penning a antithetic book, a caller astir a Wyoming rancher and her horse, Whistler, but it wasn’t clicking. As she pressed connected implicit the amended portion of a year, a 2nd thought came to her “like a fever dream.” She instantly filed distant the messy work-in-progress and began penning a fictional ode to a cherished friend, erstwhile publishing enforcement Jim Fox, to whom “Whistler” is dedicated. Fox had died 2 years before, connected his 85th birthday, and Patchett was inactive grieving. Her aim, with “Whistler,” she has said, is to enactment down connected insubstantial however overmuch they loved each other. Fox is reborn arsenic Eddie Triplett successful the book, a charming and erudite publication exertion who radiates joie de vivre and is among the loves of his stepdaughter Daphne’s life.

Patchett’s literate benignant isn’t of the show-offy assortment packed with dazzling sentences and edge-of-your-seat cliffhangers. The play is quiet. Her words accrue and summation powerfulness done their spareness and clarity, and a level of quality improvement that forges an casual intimacy with the reader. There’s besides a sly wit and sagacity that person go Patchett signatures, honed to perfection successful “Whistler,” whether wrestling with the bequest of household trauma, oregon the quality conflict to judge the transitory quality of it all. Or, arsenic Patchett’s parent erstwhile admonished aft the nonaccomplishment of her daughter’s archetypal marriage: “Stop trying to marque everything permanent. It doesn’t work.”

While Patchett has intelligibly drawn connected existent events and individuals to nutrient this luminous work, she exhibits the adept novelist’s knack for pursuing a crippled wherever the imaginativeness takes it. I don’t urge consuming “Whistler” successful 1 tremendous gulp. I dipped successful and out, savoring scenes, reflecting connected them, occasionally shedding a tear. In different words, I didn’t privation it to end.

Haber is simply a writer, exertion and publishing strategist and co-founder of the Ink Book Club connected Substack. She was manager of Oprah’s Book Club and books exertion for O, the Oprah Magazine.