Ann Patchett
The Waterstones Podcast
Ann Patchett discusses her novel 'Whistler' and reflects on themes of platonic love, loss, and mortality, inspired by her deep friendship wi
Key takeaways
- Platonic love can be as profound and transformative as romantic love, especially in times of grief and loss.
- The act of caring for a dying friend—being present during illness—is not just about service but also about receiving immense emotional and spiritual reward.
Main topics
- Platonic friendship
- Grief and loss
Notable quotes
"I only ask to live another hundred years so that your memory will remain with me that much longer." – from *20,000 Leagues Under the Sea* (dedicated in Whistler)
Conclusion
Ann Patchett's conversation reveals how deeply personal experiences—especially love and loss—can shape art, while
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:00) Anne, welcome back to Waterstones. Will, Speaker 1 (0:02) thank you for having me back at Waterstones. Speaker 2 (0:04) Last time we spoke, it was a while ago, it was for the Dutch House, and it was back when I had co-hosts on my podcast. It's just me now, I'm afraid. Speaker 1 (0:12) Times are tight, you know, everybody's cutting back. They Speaker 2 (0:15) have moved on to bigger and better things. Co-hosts Speaker 1 (0:18) are Speaker 2 (0:18) so Speaker 1 (0:18) expensive. They are Speaker 2 (0:19) so expensive, and they're riders, all that stuff. Yeah, right, exactly. Can't Speaker 1 (0:22) be Speaker 2 (0:22) doing with it. Whereas I am cheap. Speaker 2 (0:26) But we had a lovely conversation about that book and it's great to have a chance to speak to you about your new novel Whistler, but I suppose actually more generally about your work because there are some themes in this which will feel, I think, familiar to readers and this is what they enjoy with your writing. Are you Speaker 1 (0:41) telling me I'm in a rut? Well, Speaker 2 (0:42) not at all. Okay. The best writers just write the same book again and again. Actually, that's really true. Yeah. So, in fact, before we get into Whistler, I would actually like to start with... something I've never done before, which is the dedication. At the beginning of the book, you say that this is for Jim Fox. And I would love, if you wouldn't mind, to hear more about him, because it's clear that he has made this book happen and is a really key part of it. So who was Jim Fox? Speaker 1 (1:11) Jim Fox was head legal counsel at HarperCollins, which is my publisher in the US. And we became friends because I got into a little bit of legal trouble. You only meet the lawyer when you're doing something wrong. We became friends in, I want to say, 2004. We had a lot of long phone conversations. I am not ever a person who needs help. I am the person who... if you're in trouble, you would call me. But this was one of the few moments that I was really in trouble. Speaker 2 (1:47) And Speaker 1 (1:47) Jim Fox got me through it. And in that, we became friends. And at one point, he invited me to come and spend the weekend with him. He lived in New York, but he had a house out in Sag Harbor on Long Island. And he said, when you come, We will be discussing Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser and Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, neither of which I had read. And I was like, OK, all right. Like one, why was I going to this guy's house for four days in a place that's really hard to get to? But I loved him and I wanted to make a good impression. And I read both of the books and I got there and the first night we're having dinner and I was like, OK, are we going to talk about Sister Carrie first? or Portrait of a Lady. And he started to laugh and he said, my God, do you not have a sense of humor? And I was like, oh, wow, I just totally missed it. But it also set the tone for our entire friendship, which he was my best reading friend. Speaker 2 (2:54) If Speaker 1 (2:55) he loved the book, 100 % I was going to love it. If he hated it, I was going to hate it, but also the other way around. And we were constantly mailing books back and forth to each other. And I would go and see him and spend huge amounts of time with him. We would go to Buddhist seminars together. Jim was the best. He died May 3rd, two years ago on his 85th birthday. And I was kind of thinking like, what do you do with all that love? And so I decided to just make up two characters and drop all of that love. onto them. And the book has a really great quote in the dedication, which my publishers thought was an epigraph. So they put it on a separate page and I was like, it's not an epigraph. It's the dedication. Speaker 2 (3:48) And Speaker 1 (3:49) it's from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. And it says something, I'll get it wrong. We can check it. We've got it right Speaker 2 (3:57) here. Right Speaker 1 (3:58) in the front. Speaker 2 (3:59) Here we go. Speaker 1 (4:00) Thank you. It says, I only ask to live another hundred years so that your memory will remain with me that much longer. Speaker 2 (4:11) Delightful. Speaker 1 (4:12) So great. Have you ever read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? I'm Speaker 2 (4:15) ashamed to say I haven't. Don't Speaker 1 (4:16) be ashamed. Speaker 2 (4:17) Okay. Speaker 1 (4:17) Now, not long after Jim died, my dog had died the same day Jim died. Speaker 2 (4:23) Yeah. Speaker 1 (4:24) And it was a really bad day. And I got a new dog and I named the dog Nemo. So I thought, I have to read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea because you can't have a dog named Nemo without having read that book. And I came across that and I wrote it down in a notebook. And then after I had finished writing Whistler, I just coincidentally found the notebook Speaker 2 (4:47) and Speaker 1 (4:48) thought, oh, that's why I wrote that down. Speaker 2 (4:51) Yeah. How extraordinary. You mentioned that the sort of how you were the kind of person who usually offers the help. And you wrote a really beautiful piece called Glow Worms, which was about how you had helped Jim when he was undergoing treatment. And that felt to me to be a very specific kind of love. And you were very, you sort of talk in the article about how you were like, this is the thing that I want to do and nobody else gets involved. I want this time with him. Speaker 1 (5:20) What Speaker 2 (5:21) was it about that act, I suppose, that meant that you wanted to have ownership of it and to have that time with him? Speaker 1 (5:27) It wasn't about the act. It was just it was such a gift. Speaker 2 (5:31) His Speaker 1 (5:31) husband is the last of the white glove travel agents. And he goes all over the world to check out not just the best hotel, but the best room at the best hotel, the best table at the best restaurant, that sort of thing. So Martin was going to be gone. And Jim was saying, oh, I don't know. I don't need anybody here. but I was like, I'm coming. I am 100%. If I can have a whole week with you, this is heaven. And the day after I got there, I took him to chemo and things didn't