A man followed her through a gallery. Then her life changed

Much-loved American writer Ann Patchett’s 10th novel, Whistler, is a story within a story within a story – a babushka doll of a novel that is both a family saga and a song of praise to the power of storytelling. It is vintage Patchett.

The main story, set in New York, sees 53-year-old Daphne Fuller unexpectedly reunited with her first stepfather, Eddie Triplett, whom she has not seen since he and Abigail divorced when she was nine (her mother Abigail remarried). Within that is the story of an accident Eddie caused that left him and Daphne trapped in a freezing car overnight – the reason (so Daphne believes) Abigail divorced him. Finally, there is the story of Whistler, a devoted horse who saves his owner’s life, which Eddie tells Daphne while they are trapped in the car to keep her spirits up.

Eddie’s reappearance causes Daphne to reflect upon and re-evaluate aspects of her past that she has repressed, including her troubled relationship with her mother – “I stepped into an open crack in time and fell backwards”, she says.

Family drama is familiar territory for Patchett. She is at her finest exploring the delicate nuances of family dynamics; she has done so in her last three books, Commonwealth (2016), The Dutch House (2019) and Tom Lake (2023). The first two, like Whistler, deal with blended families. There is an autobiographical element in Whistler, too – Patchett, like Daphne, had two stepfathers; she wrote about her love for them in her essay collection These Precious Days (2021).

Daphne and Eddie’s reunion occurs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, after Daphne’s husband Jonathan approaches an older man who has been following them around. When he introduces the man to Daphne as Eddie, she bursts into tears, realising that she has missed him “every day of my life”.

The loving relationship between Eddie and Daphne, abruptly terminated when Abigail divorced him and forbade him from seeing Daphne or her sister Leda again, and then reignited four decades later, lies at the heart of the book.

Although Abigail and Eddie’s marriage was brief, Daphne adored him and remembers their time together as the highlight of a troubled childhood. Patchett has said she wanted to explore the impact on a child of having someone in their life who really understands them. One obvious impact of Eddie on Daphne’s adult life is that she has always attracted older men – her husband Jonathan is 17 years her senior.

The car accident, which we learn about through a series of flashbacks, brings Daphne and Eddie closer. It is in the scenes where they are trapped in the car overnight that Patchett’s writing is at its most poignant. She illustrates how Eddie’s love for Daphne deepens as she demonstrates extraordinary courage, realising that he will “never again love another person as much as he loved her”.

Daphne’s trust in him to engineer their rescue is absolute; she later recalls this time as “the happiest she’d ever been”. It is a brilliant portrayal of how adversity can forge an unbreakable bond.

Daphne has never told the story before – “I put the whole thing in a box and shoved it in the basement. Then I forgot about it.” Patchett shows that you can never escape your past – it will reverberate throughout your life. Daphne suffered lifelong guilt because her mother told her she had divorced Eddie because of the accident. When she eventually discovers an alternative narrative, the realisation is hugely liberating. Her mother’s volatile marriage history (three husbands) made Daphne’s childhood difficult, leading her to decide not to have children; thus, parents’ choices shape their children’s adult lives.

Despite all this, Daphne’s life has been happy, something she attributes to Eddie. When they are trapped in the car, Eddie urges her to leave to try to find help. He calms her fears that a stranger might harm her by telling her there are more good people in the world than bad. “His case for human decency had informed my life. I believed him – and by believing him, I had found it to be true.”

Whistler by Ann Patchett is published by Bloomsbury ($35).