Book Review | A Tender Father & Daughter Tale
Patchett’s writing is sparse; she doesn’t rely on lengthy descriptions or flowery prose. Daphne and Eddie’s tender bond is all the fuel the story needs to move forward.
Whistler by Ann Patchett starts with the protagonist of the book, 53-year-old Daphne Fuller, a creative writing teacher in a school. She and her husband, 70-year-old Jonathan Fuller, are visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Sharp-eyed Jonathan realises that an elderly man is watching his wife from quite some time, actually following them around. Jonathan goes up to the man and later tells his wife that the man is her stepfather. A surprised Daphne has to do a bit of searching her memory as it’s been 44 years since she last saw her stepfather. The elderly man is Eddie Triplett, briefly married to Abigail (Daphne’s mother) when Daphne was nine years old.
After that meeting Daphne and Eddie rekindle their stepfather-stepdaughter relationship. Eddie takes Daphne to his college friend Skip and Polly Hotalling’s golden wedding anniversary. Eddie also meets his second stepdaughter Leda.
We meet Abigail much later in the story, though she is always a part of Daphne and Eddie’s conversations. Daphne and Leda were a result of Abigail’s marriage to Buddy Zabriskie, a man in love with his boat and waters more than with his wife. After her divorce from Buddy, Abigail and Eddie got married. Both worked at Houghton Mifflin Publishers in Boston. An incident led to Eddie’s ouster from Abigail’s life.
Abigail is now married to Lucas Ekker and has two sons with him. Luckily, the story focuses on Daphne and Eddie, and the other characters are briefly mentioned on a need-to-do basis. So, they don’t encroach on the reader’s mind nor do they occupy prime real estate in the books via chunks of paragraphs.
In a couple of flashbacks, Patchett takes the readers to the accident which impacted Daphne and Eddie’s lives. Daphne loved her stepfather and he reciprocated this feeling. We also hear of Whistler, a horse. Those parts became my favourite.
Patchett’s writing is sparse; she doesn’t rely on lengthy descriptions or flowery prose. Daphne and Eddie’s tender bond is all the fuel the story needs to move forward. Patchett has woven a tender story of familial bonds, and the enduring power of love and memory. The story is like a gentle flame that keeps one warm on a cold winter night. The writing is like a kheer in which all the ingredients come together, leaving a sweet aftertaste lingering for a long time. A must-read if you love stories about family and love.
Rachna Chhabria is a Bengaluru based children’s author and a freelance writer.
Whistler
Ann Patchett
Bloomsbury
pp. 305; Rs 699/-
