The One Who Saves Your Life Through Love
A Review of
Whistler: A Novel
Ann Patchett
Hardcover: Harper, 2026
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Reviewed by Ann Byle
Everyone needs a Whistler in their lives: that one person who, through intention or instinct or accident, saves you. Perhaps it’s literally someone who prevents you from dying, but, more often, it’s the one who saves your life through love, attention, interest, and common ground.
Ann Patchett’s newest novel, Whistler, features all of the above. There is physical saving as well as emotional saving, all told through memories and current events, a lovely mosaic of past and present, written in Patchett’s signature smooth storytelling style, with blips of high humor throughout.
Daphne Fuller and her husband Jonathan visit the Met in New York and recognize an older gentleman as Eddie Triplett, Daphne’s former stepfather. He had been married to Daphne’s mother for about a year when Daphne was nine. The two bonded immediately, kindred spirits from the start, but the marriage ended after a near tragedy. Eddie and Daphne hadn’t seen each other in decades.
That chance meeting prompts a book full of memories as Daphne and Eddie remember and rehash the past, putting key events into new focus. Daphne’s younger sister Leda helps her relive that past, though Leda’s memories are different and less focused. The jump from past to present and back again reveals details of the backstory bit by bit: Abigail and Buddy Zabriskie’s marriage and divorce; Abigail and Eddie’s marriage and divorce; Abigail’s marriage to an older man, the bestselling author Lucas Ekker, with whom she has two sons.
These memories include the dramatic events that lead, in part, to Eddie Triplett’s departure from the family. Involved in all of it are Skip and Polly Hotalling, whose part in Eddie’s life is outsized and much more toxic than first imagined.
Who or what is Whistler? I’m not revealing that detail here, but suffice it to say we all need a Whistler in our lives from time to time. Eddie and Daphne are Whistlers to each other both in the past and in the present they rebuild together.
Patchett is at the top of her game in Whistler, continuing the success of Tom Lake and The Dutch House living up to past accolades including the PEN/Faulkner, Book Sense Book of the Year, and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Patchett’s many fans will keep her at the top of their list, while new readers will step into an amazing world of life, memories, and healing. Whistler is a fine summer read that will have you thinking about the Whistlers in your own life. Who has saved you? Who has changed your life? Whom have you helped save?
Ann Byle
Ann Byle lives in West Michigan with her science teacher husband, Ray. Their young adult children are in and out regularly. Ann writes for Christianity Today and Publishers Weekly, among other publications, and is author of Chicken Scratch: Lessons on Living Creatively from a Flock of Hens.
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