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★★★★★ 5
One of Ann Patchett’s best novels.
Format: Hardcover
“Whistler,” by Ann Patchett, Harper, 320 pages, June 2, 2026.
Daphne and Jonathan Fuller are visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art when Jonathan notices an older man following them. They go up to the next floor and the man is still following them.
It turns out he is Eddie Triplett, Daphne’s former stepfather, who was married to her mother for a little more than year when Daphne was nine. They haven’t seen each other in almost 45 years, but he recognizes her.
It is a chance meeting. Daphne teaches literature at a private school and Jonathan is a retired hospital administrator. Eddie is an editor at Random House, but he wasn’t at the office this day because of a water main break.
Daphne visits her sister, Leda, to tell her about the encounter. Flashback to 1980, when Leda was having an appendectomy, Eddie was driving Daphne to the hospital in a snowstorm and they were in an accident. Daphne had to climb out of a car window and walk for help. After that, her mother divorced Eddie. Of course, there’s more to what happened.
This is a wonderful story about adults looking back at the choices they’ve made and the choices that others made for them. It is about the small things that impact our lives and memories of childhood. It is about families, love and bravery. This is one of Ann Patchett’s best novels.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2026
