Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett emerged onto the literary scene before she even graduated from college, with a piece in the prestigious Paris Review. Her debut novel, The Patron Saint of Liars, was turned into a movie with Ellen Burstyn and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Her second, Taft, won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. By her fourth, Bel Canto, she had become a literary icon, winning the PEN/Faulkner Award and being named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle.

Patchett still hasn’t let up, even as she continues running her Nashville bookstore, turning out essays and becoming a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Now, the #1 New York Times bestselling writer returns with her eleventh novel, Whistler, a tale filled with the rarest of all characters in serious literature: ones who are kind and happy.

Patchett joins us to discuss the young woman and older man — formerly stepdaughter and stepfather — who bump into each other unexpectedly after decades apart and discover how connections can defy time.