Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett chats with Zibby Owens live at the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center about her majestic eleventh novel, Whistler. Ann shares how the narrative sparks to life inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art when 53-year-old Daphne Fuller unexpectedly comes face-to-face with Eddie Triplett, the beloved former stepfather she hasn't seen since a traumatic car accident shattered her childhood over forty years prior. She explains how their chance meeting causes time to fall away, acting as a luminous testament to how being truly known by just one person—even for a brief period—can shape the entire trajectory of a life.
Ann pulls back the curtain on her creative process, revealing how she moved the book's opening from the elevator-bound Whitney Museum to The Met's grand staircases. She also reflects on the autobiographical-adjacent nature of her work, the profound piece of advice her ex-LAPD father gave her to never engage with unwanted conflict, and the symbolic meaning behind the novel's title and its cover horse, Whistler. Finally, she opens up about dedicating the book to her late, dear friend Jim Fox and shares the comforting, perspective-shifting wisdom her mother passed down after an early divorce: that an ending in a relationship does not mean it was a failure.