‘“Everybody lives,” Eddie said, because the creation of narrative tension was not his objective.’

That pretty much summarises Ann Patchett’s ‘Whistler’. 

Ambling through the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, 53 year-old Daphne senses that a stranger is following her. When he reveals himself to be Eddie Triplett, a man who used to be briefly married to her mother, the revelation unleashes a dam of memories from her childhood.

This chance meeting, 44 years after they last saw each other, leads Daphne down a pleasant path of recollections, reconnections, and realisations. What a joy to be reminded at 53 that someone will always see you how you used to be at 9! To piece together a chapter in your history that was nearly forgotten to the ebb and flow of time. 

Eddie Triplett is written to be a dream character. He’s kind, tender, well-read, easygoing, and charming to no end. Who wouldn’t enjoy the company of such a person? He works in publishing, has stacks of books by his bed, treats the children of his (ex)wife as if they are his own, and in the wake of the divorce, when asked to vanish, simply does. This last bit, the disappearing act of a generous man, is it an act of deference or indifference? We never know because Ann Patchett shuts down all possible opportunities for uncomfortable discussions.