Despite Richman’s talent with visual detail, nothing new about van Gogh is illuminated, and wan Marguerite never comes fully...
Another in the ever-expanding genre of possible romances between famous painters and their subjects.
The real-life van Gogh spent the last 70 days of his life, an artistically prolific period, in Auvers-sur-Oise under the care of Dr. Gachet, a homeopathic physician. Richman (Swedish Tango, 2004, etc.) re-envisions those weeks in 1890 by focusing on the doctor’s daughter, Marguerite. Approaching 21, she has spent her childhood isolated with her younger brother, who is cared for by Madame Chevalier, a “governess” who is clearly their father’s mistress. Madame’s daughter, Louise-Josephine (probably Marguerite’s half-sister), has recently joined the eccentric household. A would-be painter with a growing art collection, Dr. Gachet does not allow mixing with the townspeople. Marguerite, a gifted pianist and gardener who yearns for experience in the world, is immediately attracted to van Gogh, who seems serious and physically fragile but relatively sane. Smitten himself, he asks Dr. Gachet’s permission to paint Marguerite. He portrays her first in the garden, capturing her loneliness, then at the piano, showing her beauty. As their flirtation deepens, Marguerite also begins to forge a genuine friendship with Louise-Josephine, who regularly sneaks out to meet her local sweetheart. Soon, Marguerite is doing the same to meet Vincent. But a visit to his brother in Paris leaves van Gogh distraught. He explains that given his limited energy and funds, he cannot afford to marry, but he gives Marguerite a third portrait, hidden in their private cave: “It will always be here for you,” he promises. Dr. Gachet catches her returning and sequesters her at home. Days later, van Gogh shoots himself. When Louise-Josephine, the story’s only truly healthy character, marries and suggests that Marguerite come to Paris, Marguerite chooses to remain in Auvers-sur-Oise, to be near Vincent’s painting.
Despite Richman’s talent with visual detail, nothing new about van Gogh is illuminated, and wan Marguerite never comes fully to life.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2006
ISBN: 0-425-21267-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2006
An interesting premise imperfectly executed.
A Jewish trapeze artist and a Dutch unwed mother bond, after much aerial practice, as the circus comes to Nazi-occupied France.
Ingrid grew up in a Jewish circus family in Darmstadt, Germany. In 1934, she marries Erich, a German officer, and settles in Berlin. In 1942, as the war and Holocaust escalate, Erich is forced to divorce Ingrid. She returns to Darmstadt to find that her family has disappeared. A rival German circus clan, led by its patriarch, Herr Neuhoff, takes her in, giving her a stage name, Astrid, and forged Aryan papers. As she rehearses for the circus’ coming French tour, she once again experiences the freedom of an accomplished aerialist, even as her age, late 20s, catches up with her. The point of view shifts (and will alternate throughout) to Noa, a Dutch teenager thrown out by her formerly loving father when she gets pregnant by a German soldier. After leaving the German unwed mothers’ home where her infant has been taken away, either for the Reich’s Lebensborn adoption program or a worse fate, Noa finds work sweeping a train station. When she comes upon a boxcar full of dead or dying infants, she impulsively grabs one who resembles her own child, later naming him Theo. By chance, Noa and Theo are also rescued by Neuhoff, who offers her refuge in the circus, provided she can learn the trapeze. The tour begins with a stop in Thiers, France. Astrid is still leery of her new apprentice, but Noa catches on quickly and soon must replace Astrid in the act due to the risk that a Nazi spectator might recognize her. Noa falls in love with the mayor’s son, Luc, who Astrid suspects is a collaborator. Astrid’s Russian lover, Peter, a clown, tempts fate with a goose-stepping satire routine, and soon the circus will afford little protection to anybody. The diction seems too contemporary for the period, and the degree of danger the characters are in is more often summarized than demonstrated.
An interesting premise imperfectly executed.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7783-1981-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This winter’s tale has something to melt each frozen heart.
Thrown together by a Brooklyn blizzard, two NYU professors and a Guatemalan nanny find themselves with a body to dispose of.
“Blessed with the stoic character of her people, accustomed as they are to earthquakes, floods, occasional tsunamis, and political cataclysm,” 61 year-old Chilean academic Lucia Maraz is nonetheless a bit freaked out by a snowstorm so severe that it's reported on television “in the solemn tone usually reserved for news about terrorism in far-off countries.” Her landlord and boss, the tightly wound Richard Bowmaster, lives right upstairs with his four cats, but he rebuffs her offer of soup and company. Too bad: she might have a crush on him. Enter Evelyn Ortega, a diminutive young woman from Guatemala Richard meets when he skids into her Lexus on the iced-over streets. Evelyn’s hysterical reaction to the fender bender seems crazily out of proportion when she shows up on his doorstep that night, and he has Lucia come up to help him understand why she’s so upset. The Lexus, it turns out, belongs to her volatile, violent employer…and there’s a corpse in the now-unlatchable trunk. Once Lucia gradually pieces together Evelyn’s story—she was smuggled north by a coyote after barely surviving gang violence that killed both of her siblings—the two professors decide to help her, and the plan they come up with is straight out of a telenovela. While that’s getting underway, Allende (The Japanese Lover, 2015, etc.) fills in the dark and complicated histories of Richard and Lucia, who also have suffered defining losses. The horrors of Evelyn’s past have left her all but mute; Richard is a complete nervous wreck; Lucia fears there is no greater love coming her way than that of her Chihuahua, Marcelo.
This winter’s tale has something to melt each frozen heart.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-7813-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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