Whistler
This is vintage Patchett ... Patchett in a lighter register, its tempo brisk as a short story’s. It’s a drama of manners, a nostalgic interpretation of what family looks like in a rarefied space far removed from soaring gasoline prices, populist anger and Trumpian rage. It’s also a lament for our vanishing literary culture. It may lack the narrative heft of The Dutch House and Bel Canto, but it scatters a similar fairy dust across its pages, delivering its pleasures with wit and panache.
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The dramatic tension,...isn’t interpersonal but man versus the inexorable march of time ... Absence of edge can at times lead to a lack of narrative tension in her fiction ... Charm is less plot-driven than dialogue-driven. Daphne’s repartee with her entourage keeps the sentimentality just about in check.
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Is there such a thing as too perfect? Enter Whistler, Patchett’s new novel ... The past is held up and examined like a snow globe, given a pretty little shake. But what matters is the perpetual, beautiful now ... Whistler is top-shelf comfort food, the literary equivalent of pricey ice-cream. We almost care about these vanilla-bean people. Their floral arrangements; their silk blouses; their dinky sailboats. But it’s all so neat ... Often reads like a gratitude journal.
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