Ann Patchett has a new novel coming in 2026.
Harper will publish the author’s Whistler next spring, the press announced in a news release. It calls the book “a moving, luminous book that reminds us of the sweetness and impermanence of life and the power of connection to defy time.”
Patchett made her literary debut in 1992 with the novel The Patron Saint of Liars. Her 2001 novel, Bel Canto, won the Orange Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and her 2019 novel, The Dutch House, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her other novels include State of Wonder, Commonwealth, and Tom Lake.
Whistler will follow Daphne Fuller, a woman who reunites with her former stepfather after they run into each other at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The novel, Harper says, is “a story about bravery, memory, the often small yet consequential moments that define our lives, and the endless stream of loss that in time comes for us all. Beautiful in its simplicity, it is ultimately about how love endures, and how the feeling of being known by one other person, even for a short period of time, can change everything.”
Patchett told People magazine, “Whistler was a gift. I was missing a very close friend who had recently died, and in missing him, I imagined what life might have been like if we were two different people in a very different relationship. Nothing that happens in this book happened to us, and we are not these people, but all the love is there."
Whistler is scheduled for publication on June 2, 2026.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
