by Ann Patchett
I really enjoyed Patchett's book Bel Canto. I have read other books by her and none grabbed me like that one.
This book Whistler is a complicated book primarily about one woman and her family.
Daphne, the main character, is at an art gallery in New York when her husband observes and older man "stalking" them. Her husband approaches the man and the woman is delighted to find out that the man is her mother's second husband, whom she liked very much. She is glad to see him.
We then learned that the woman's mother had two girls by her first husband, a fisherman. She divorced him. The girls remember this man as not being much in their loves.
Their mother marries Eddie Triplett and the girls like him very much but while the mother is at the hospital while the younger girl is having an appendix attack, Eddie takes Daphne for a rid in the car into the country and they drive off the road. While they are in the car Eddie tells Daphne about a book he is editing about a woman who falls off a horse and is injured. While she is alone she has dead relatives "visit" her and eventually her horse, who had gotten spooked returns and she is able to get home.
The girl climbs out of the car because her father is trapped. She is able to get hope.
As a result of the accident her mother kicks Eddie out of the house and they divorce. Later the mother marries a third man, an author of positivity books, and has two sons with them. The girls don't have much contact with their mother and her new family,
As the story progresses we learn that Daphne blames herself for the accident because she wanted to go see the stars. Later she learns that Eddie was gay and having an ongoing relationship with a family friend. Her mother had thought he had given up his gay life but when he is in hospital after his accident she finds him being comforted by his gay lover. It was not her "fault" after all.
As the book ends Daphne and her sister renew their life with Eddie. Daphne is shattered to learn that Eddie has leukemia. She insists on taking him to his chemo treatments. Daphne also comes to realize that her father was a kind man who had to live his life. Their mother's third husband dies and at the end of the book the mother gets reacquainted with Eddie and all the family members seem to be getting along fine.
The story was gentle and interesting and in these terrible times with Trump, wild fires, wars and global warming impact it was nice to have a "happy" ending.
Why the horse story?? The man used it to calm the girl while they were in the car but I think the fact that she is there for him as he declines reflects the Whistler story. In the book we see various lives, from new perspectives, sort of like the dead visited the horse woman. The book included a lot about what we think we know about people, but what we don't really know. It was about life, memories and who we love and why. Just after Daphne is reacquainted with Eddie her husband has to return to his family home to clean out the house with his sister, following the death of his mother. Again, the theme of working through memories, feelings and "stuff".
Patchett writes very beautifully and insightfully about people and does a good job portraying life and its complexities and challenges
