Claire Nicholls

Wow.

So the secret to Ann Patchett, the lovely author famous for being so nice, has just been unlocked.

It was all your sister's doing.

No, it's true.

And listeners won't know because they haven't read Whistler yet, but A Car Accident is a very pivotal part of this novel.

Anne, I want to know a little bit about the process for this book, Whistler, because I've heard before that you really have to have a lot of the details of the story locked in in your head before you will start writing.

Can you tell me a little bit about what the launching pad was for Whistler?

How incredible.

And did you have the details of this book figured out in those five days?

It was a busy time.

You know, this process of kind of percolating it all in your mind before you write it, during that time, are you talking to other people in your life?

Are you telling them the idea?

Are you sounding it out?

So it was a bit of a reunion on the page.

Yeah.

We've been talking a little bit about process and it should be noted that the character of Eddie Triplett is an editor.

He's Eddie the editor, a book editor.

Was this book a little bit about celebrating the editors of the world?

We've talked about the fact that once Daphne and Eddie are reunited in this book, they are determined to stay together.

They're both such warm and wonderful and generous characters.