September 1, 2014
Vreeland follows Clara and Mr. Tiffany with a lyrical paean to Provence, painting, and the timeless cycle of death and rebirth. In 1937, 20-year-old Lisette Roux must leave her beloved Paris to live with her husband André in the south of France, where they will care for his grandfather, Pascal, in tiny Roussillon. Provincial life is challenging in all but one respect. Lisette has always wanted to work with art, and Pascal, a former artists' pigment salesman, has collected seven extraordinary paintings as well as many tales of artists, which he is eager to share before he dies. His insistence on doing what is most important before it's too late inspires Lisette to create her own list of essential "hungers and vows." Soon after his passing, Germany occupies France. Before leaving to fight, André hides the paintingsâPissaros, Cezannes, and a possible Picassoâin a location he doesn't disclose in fear for Lisette's safety. The years that follow bring small privations, huge losses, the search for the scattered paintings, and the slow resurgence of hope. Early on, Vreeland's narrative lacks compelling suspense or drive, but it picks up once the war begins and the paintings are lost. The novel's heart is its patient interweaving of sensuous, meticulously observed details with themes of forgiveness, female strength, and survival.
Starred review from August 1, 2014
Une jolie Parisienne in Provence during the turbulent World War II years comes to understand love and great art to the core of her being. In a sweeping historical novel set in Vichy, France, Lisette Roux, a 20-year-old bride who longs for "window-shopping, cabaret hopping, gallery gazing," grudgingly moves out of Paris to the rural south to take care of her new husband Andre's aging grandfather in 1937. "How are we going to survive in a town without a gallery?" she asks in dismay. But Pascal is not your ordinary grandpere: An ochre miner-turned-pigment salesman, he befriended young, unappreciated painters and amassed a collection of Cezanne, Pissarro and Picasso paintings. After Pascal dies, the loving couple is cast out of an Edenic existence following the German invasion of France. Andre enlists to fight the Nazis and meets a tragic end midway through the book. Lisette's short stay in Provence stretches out more than a decade, prolonged by the war and her determined attempt to find Pascal's pictures, which Andre hid for safekeeping before going to war. Lisette's sensibility deepens as she grows closer to former prisoner of war Maxime Legrand, Andre's fellow soldier and best friend. Marc and Bella Chagall, hiding in Provence because they are Jewish, show up for a brief but blazing cameo appearance. Vreeland, who has proven in earlier art-themed best-sellers that she has an exquisite eye for detail, is enormously talented at establishing the important societal role of art, particularly relevant here as the Nazis both steal and burn it. While her prose can get a bit fluffy ("apricot trees blossoming with pinkish-white petals like flakes of the moon") and the book wraps up a tad too tidily, her deeply researched novel is mesmerizing.Merveilleux. Vreeland's passionate writing is as good as a private showing at the Louvre.
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March 15, 2014
Since the elegantly conceived "The Girl in Hyacinth Blue", Vreeland has written a string of best sellers that typically blend art and history with strong character study, and her new book is no different. At the time of the Vichy regime, a young Parisian ends up in Provence, caring for her husband's grandfather. Through the works of Cezanne, Pissarro, Chagall, and Picasso, she uncovers the glories of Provence despite wartime hardships. Not just art history, this book evokes key ethical questions, including the currently timely question of art stolen during World War II. With a West Coast tour.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
July 1, 2014
In her moving latest novel, set in Provence between 1937 and 1948, Vreeland explores the power of art and how painters help us interpret our world. This involving novel also traces one young woman's maturation as she adjusts to a new life. Although Lisette Roux resents leaving Paris with her husband, Andr', to care for his grandfather Pascal, she loves hearing Pascal reminisce about Pissarro and C'zanne. Their paintings and others, which hang on his walls, have immense personal and monetary value, so Andr' conceals them before leaving to fight. Alone during wartime, Lisette endures tragedy and hardships while developing close friendships; they, and her mission to recover the paintings, drive her on. The stunning countryside, with its ocher mines, fragrant orchards, and cold mistral, is passionately depicted, and Vreeland is an informed guide to the Impressionist through Modernist movements. The book's most touching moments, though, intertwine art with human connections, such as how the love between Marc and Bella Chagallin hiding from the Nazis in Provenceis evoked through his work. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The beloved author of Girl in Hyacinth Blue (1999) has a ready-made audience for her latest work.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)
August 1, 2014
Vreeland (The Girl in Hyacinth Blue; Clara and Mr. Tiffany) once again explores the impact of art on the individual. When Lisette and Andre Roux move in 1937 from Paris to a Provencal village to care for Andre's grandfather Pascal, the sophisticated Parisienne soon is redefining her identity in a rural southern France that's not yet the vacation paradise of today but home to several decades' worth of French artists. Through mentoring by Pascal (as a pigment salesman and frame maker, he had befriended artists Camille Pisarro and Paul Cezanne, who paid him in paintings), Lisette learns to look beyond Paris's showy artifice and appreciate art's ability to free minds and to document the depths of love words can fail to capture. When World War II breaks out, other artists, Marc Chagall and Samuel Beckett in exile from occupied Paris, are also logically intertwined into the story. VERDICT Fans of Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring will find similar historical fiction pleasures here, as will those of Ayelet Waldman's Love and Treasure. Reading groups are bound to enjoy discussing how art helps Lisette find herself and see new things, showcasing how art and life not only imitate but create each other. [See Prepub Alert, 2/10/14.]--Nicole R. Steeves, Chicago P.L.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.