Review: Admiring Whitmore
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 22, 2013
Hmmm. Here's a pleasing, low-key tale that's easy on sentiment about a relationship that takes root, flowers briefly and then seems to wither.Alex has moved from New York to his hometown in Connecticut to close his father's estate. He encamps in his boyhood home and meets Tea, a waitress and aspiring photographer. She has invented for herself a mutual acquaintance whose names she evokes when meeting people.You must be a friend of Nathanial Whitmore, she says to Alex by way of introduction. "`Yes, I am,' Alex heard himself answering, assuredly. `I know Whitmore.'" And so the tale begins.For both Alex and Tea, Whitmore represents an ideal, a person of accomplishment who is remembered as always doing the right thing and saying just the right word. But as the fiction that is Whitmore begins to crumble, so does the connection Tea has to Alex.The story, much like Alex, seems slightly unmoored, floating about on relatively calm waters with no clear purpose or direction. And that's okay - for Alex and for the story."Friends of Whitmore" strikes me as the type of short piece meant to be read on a leisurely, rainy Saturday afternoon, a story that offers enjoyment but doesn't quite manage to become memorable. It's a story that manages to succeed on its merits of charm and simplicity.In a word: Pleasant