Whistler

For me, Whistler lands easily above The Dutch House but not quite at the same level as Bel Canto, which is my way of saying it's very good and not her best.

The book was a bit different than I expected, but this is still Patchett doing Patchett. It's a slow narrative that rewards patience, one that refuses to hurry toward a point.

Daphne is fifty-three when she runs into Eddie at the Met. He's her former stepfather, married to her mother for a little over a year when she was nine, and gone from her life for forty-four years after a car accident and the family truths that came out around it. This is the story of the two of them finding each other again.

The idea that was most interesting to me is that a year with someone when you're nine can turn out to be the year that formed you. Pretty mind-blowing.

So why did Patchett name the book after a horse and put a picture of her on the cover, when the horse barely appears? It's the story Eddie tells Daphne the night of the accident, and then not much more. Well, I finally realized that what the horse ends up doing (I'm not gonna spoil it) ties back to the whole theme: write everything down so none of it disappears.

Eddie told the horse story to Daphne in the worst hour of her life, and she carried it for forty-four years. That's the case the book makes about stories: even if they're not true or accurate, they hold people up.

Books that span this much time are hard, and thankfully Patchett skillfully explores the moments that matter instead of filling in the years. By the end Daphne and Eddie genuinely know each other, which is the point.

The impermanence material near the end is the best thing in it. "Once we're comfortable with death, we'll do a better job with our lives." That line is the book, and it's an instruction that also applies to reading in general. You have to be present with books the way you have to be present in a life to get anything out of them.

Patchett narrates the audiobook herself, and she's wonderful. But this is a book you want to mark. I'll re-read it in print.

My one real reservation: there are stretches where she pushes the emotion so hard I could feel the book telling me how much to feel.

4/5 stars. Five means I want to buy a copy and start it again ASAP, and even though I'm not there yet, I suspect a print re-read could move it.