Whistler
By Ann Patchett ★★★★★★★★★☆ 9/10 ""There is so much randomness to youth. The person assigned to share your room becomes your friend, the girl you pass on your way out the door becomes your wife, and from these random encounters our..."
By Ann Patchett
★★★★★★★★★☆ 9/10
295 pages
What’s it about?
Daphne Fuller is 53 when she and her husband accidentally run into her former stepfather, Eddie Triplett. He was one of her favorite people in the world- until he unexpectedly disappeared from her life when she was nine years old. Her mother and Eddie were only married for a year, but Daphne and Eddie shared a strong bond that they want to revisit.
What did it make me think about?
This story was about family, memory, how arbitrary life can be, and the relentless march of time.
Should I read it?
I loved this story. I would say this is a quiet little book. It kind of creeps up on you. Eddie, Daphne, and the surrounding cast of characters are almost cast in a warm glow. Memory, childhood, the inevitability of change, and loss are all touched on lightly. I wonder if this book will appeal more to the baby boomer crowd. It has a certain way of looking back that comes with aging. It also, at times, has a boomer perspective: " 'We were loved, not passionately but enough, and we were largely ignored, which allowed for our healthy separation from the primary family. Necessity made us resourceful and brave. We were left to solve our own problems and so we did. The children you should worry about are the ones who are the singular light of their parents' lives, the ones who hit thirty and are still calling their moms five times a day.' " I (and many of us of a certain age) certainly recognize that childhood. What I appreciated the most was that the characters in this book were both hopeful and forgiving. Maybe something we could all work towards.
A passage I marked
"There is so much randomness to youth. The person assigned to share your room becomes your friend, the girl you pass on your way out the door becomes your wife, and from these random encounters our entire lives are built, four beautiful children came into the world, and they, in turn, found the people they were meant to spend their lives with. There are ten grandchildren now. Ten new people who in part owe their lives on earth to Skip admitting that there was something deeply familiar about the girl he had passed, and trusting himself enough to turn around and go back and see who she was."
