Ellen Elow-Mintz

‘The Muralist’: Historical Fiction and Art Appreciation in One Package

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The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro (Algonquin Books, November 2015)
In 40 words or less: At the cusp of WWII, a young French-American artist pursues her art as her family tries to escape Europe. Seventy-five years later, her great-niece works to solve the mystery of her disappearance and secure her place in the art world.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Locale: New York and France
Time: 1939/40 and 2015
Read this for a gripping story filled with insights into the world of art and the machinations of the US government as the Jews of France sought to escape Nazi Europe.

RELEASE DATE – Tuesday, November 3. The Muralist, B.A. Shapiro’s second novel, brings together a young French-American artist with the luminaries of the fledgling Abstract Expressionist movement. In 1939, when the story begins, many soon-to-be-famous artists were working for the US government as part of the WPA project which commissioned realistic paintings and murals depicting life during the Depression. Alizée Benoit was born in America, leaving to live with relatives in France after the death of her parents when she was twelve. Seven years later she returns to advance her art career, aware that the situation in France for her Jewish family is becoming perilous. Her goal is to find a way to bring them all to the US, whatever it takes.

Alizée’s day job is drawing and painting murals intended for libraries, post offices and other civic buildings in a huge warehouse along with Lee Krasner and other artists. Their free hours are spent painting, drinking and arguing art and politics with Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and others in their group. Separated from his wife, Rothko takes particular interest in Alizée, both personally and professionally. Barely subsisting, the artists are often consumed by self-doubt, alcohol and depression, creating at times a toxic mix.

Seventy-five years later, Danielle Abrams is recasting her life assessing art work for a major auction house. Inspired by brief stories of her great-aunt, Alizée, and the two paintings of hers that survived, Danielle had been a painter before her divorce and held out hope she could solve Alizée’s disappearance in late 1940. When a group of paintings by the likes of Rothko and Pollock appear at work for evaluation with small related squares secreted on the back, Danielle sees hints of Alizée’s style and sets out to find out more.

As Alizée struggles to acquire visas for her family she runs up against nativism and isolationism as typified by Lindbergh and Kennedy, and anti-Semitic and obstructionist policies in the State Department spearheaded by Breckinridge Long. Eleanor Roosevelt’s genuine interest in the WPA art projects serves to bring Alizée a patron and ally. Throughout The Muralist, Alizée is receiving evermore frightening letters from her relatives in France describing the roundups and tightening restrictions on the Jews. Alizée keeps from her artist friends her activities to circumvent US visa restrictions and take down Breckinridge Long.

Danielle comes into her own as she works to establish the hidden squares as Alizée’s. As with many Holocaust survivors, her grandfather chose not to discuss his experiences before resettling in America. In pursuit of her quest, Danielle comes to terms with her family’s experience in France.

Shapiro is emphatic in the afternote that is this a work of fiction weaving in historical figures and situations consistent with the times, taking liberties to serve the story. It doesn’t purport to be a telling of history with fictional characters added.

The beauty of modern historical fiction is the research that authors put into framing the story. While historical accuracy may be sacrificed for the plot, one of the great benefits of these books is whetting the reader’s appetite to discover aspects of history or art which may be relatively unfamiliar. Having read The Muralist I learned that the Abstract Expressionist movement emerged from artists involved in the WPA artist project. (see http://www.theartstory.org/org-wpa.htm) Similarly, while it is now fairly well-known that tens of thousands of visas were unused annually during WWII, the name Breckinridge Long was unfamiliar. Two clicks on the web and his role becomes all too clear.

With this second novel, B.A. Shapiro is setting a high bar for others seeking to inform the reader about art world while telling a complex and well-structured story. It is refreshing to see strong women artists as protagonists, well-drawn and wrestling with their imperfections and moral choices as they pursue their art in a male-dominated field. Her inclusion of historical events and figures moves the plot along and her clear acknowledgement of the liberties she takes with history are most welcome. The Muralist is a fine novel to share with a friend or in a group. Note: The Muralist tops the Indie Next List for November.

‘The Girl You Left Behind’ captures the evocative power of art

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The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes (Penguin Books, 2012)
In 40 words or less: A portrait ties together two young women and their absent husbands. A thought-provoking story of love, art, ownership and restitution.
Genre: Fiction
Locale: France and London
Time: 1916 and Present
Read this for a classic story interwoven with contemporary issues of ownership, morality and the transformative power of art.

Jojo Moyes first made a splash on the US book scene in 2012 with her novel Me Before You. With a longstanding reputation in Great Britain, two additional titles were released here later in 2012, The Girl You Left Behind and its prequel novella, Honeymoon in Paris. Were it not for a book group requesting a discussion on The Girl You Left Behind, I might have missed it. I’m glad I didn’t.

Moyes immediately immerses the reader in the life of Sophie Lefèvre, a young woman struggling with her sister and brother to get by while the Germans occupy their French village in October 1916. Sophie, strong and independent, had lived in Paris, meeting her artist husband, Edouard, there while she was a shopgirl. When he left for the Army, she returned to the village to help her sister whose husband was goners well. The Germans commandeered almost everything, leaving the residents with little to eat and few possessions. The sisters’ inn, stripped of almost all furniture, was required to prepare and serve meals to the troops billeted in the town. While charged with preparing the food, the family, which included a baby and the daughter of a woman taken by the Germans, had to account for every morsel of food served.

The only item of value left in the home was a painting of Sophie by Edouard, an Impressionist. The portrait was imbued with all the love Edouard felt for his wife and served as a promise of their future together. The Kommandant was taken by the painting and was prepared to go to great lengths in the hope of acquiring it. And Sophie would put herself in great peril for the chance to reunite with Edouard.

The story shifts to present-day London where Liv Halston is a young widow, living in the Glass House designed by her late husband David, a renowned architect. Liv is frozen in her grief, the only softness in her life is the portrait David purchased for her while they honeymooned in Paris. A chance meeting with an ex-pat American involved in art restitution sets off a chain of events upending both their lives and demanding that the fate of the Lefèvres be known.

Don’t for a minute think this is merely a story of time-linked romances. Moyes presents the legal and emotional issues associated with art restitution, carefully making the Holocaust a minor player. By doing so the visceral attachment people have to art, as contrasted with its possible market value, is elevated. Moyes is acutely aware that most restitution claims arise from German confiscation of art owned by Jews and brings that into the story as a means of bringing moral gravitas to the debate about ownership and redress.

With carefully constructed plot twists, The Girl You Left Behind held my interest to final page. Moyes’s deft hand in tackling fundamental issues rises well above many popular novels.

Whether film or novel, Emma Donoghue’s ‘Room’ will grab you

Having just seen a preview of Room, the movie Emma Donoghue brought to life from her novel, I’m not surprised the process took five years. As a fan of the book, I was waiting to see how a story told through the eyes of a five-year old could be transferred successfully to the screen. Jacob Tremblay as Jack and Brie Larson as Ma made believers out of me within minutes. Lenny Abrahamson’s direction brought the difficult juxtaposition of home/prison to life.

My companion at the theater had not read the novel but was familiar with the real life situation in Cleveland a couple of years ago. We were impressed with how regular each of the characters appeared even in the midst of extraordinary circumstances. The acting was so persuasive I was still grabbed emotionally despite knowing exactly what would happen. The only jarring note was William H. Macy as Joy’s father, but he fit the role to a tee.

For those easily spooked I’d likely choose the book over the movie. While there is little violence, the story is about physical and emotional abuse and the most vulnerable. Room in both versions is a story very well told.

******** From October 16 **********

Five years ago, during one of my Book Expo America forays into the larger world of soon-to-be published titles, I picked up Emma Donoghue’s novel Room. With its colorful and childish lettering on the cover, it gave off a simple, calm impression. Was I wrong. It was Room that brought home the wonder of reading a title months before it hits the stores and the critics have at it. This book made such an impression that I seek it out every time I pass the shelf. So why write about it now? Today the movie version of Room is opening in New York, Los Angeles and other select locations. It will have wider distribution beginning next week.

Room is Jack’s story. Jack is five years old and lives with his mother, Ma, in a single room with no view of the outside world. Ma has been a prisoner for seven years after having been kidnapped. Jack is her captor’s son. As a reader, there is magic mixed with horror in Jack’s description of his world. Under the worst of possible circumstances Ma is nurturing a funny, bright boy while hiding from him the unending terror that is her life. When I read it back in 2010 the story was almost unimaginable. Two years ago, a reality all too similar to Donoghue’s fiction was uncovered in Cleveland. Three young women, and the daughter of one, were held in a similar fashion for up to ten years. The tragedy of life imitating art.

Emma Donoghue could have taken the easy way out and ended the novel with Jack and Ma’s escape. At that, it would have been a searing story of love and creativity under dire circumstances. Jack is to all appearances an active, inquisitive, normal boy, albeit a boy with inanimate objects for friends and no conception of the world beyond his walls. Instead Donoghue touches the world anew through Jack’s eyes – the bright vastness and the feel of the breeze in the open air. New people, new sounds, new experiences – all overwhelming at times. Too often we are desensitized by the common and everyday. Room brings back the mix of excitement and trepidation of the unfamiliar.

Having read the book in advance, I am now lucky to have snagged preview tickets for the film. I plan to assiduously avoid reviews until after I bring fresh eyes to the screen on Wednesday. For now, I can wholeheartedly recommend you read the book. Next week I’ll see if the movie can capture Jack and Ma’s world.

The beauty of Kent Haruf’s ‘Our Souls at Night’

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Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf (Random House Audio, 2015)
In 40 words or less: A beautiful, yet spare tale of two older adults who are changed through their relationship.
Genre: Fiction
Locale: Colorado
Time: Present
Read this to savor a story about the essence of humanity and the importance of relationships at every age.

There are some things are far better with a healthy measure of life experiences behind you. Kent Haruf’s Our Souls at Night is such a book. As with Haruf’s other novels, it takes place is small town Colorado. Addie Moore drums up the courage to approach her neighbor, Louis Waters, with a proposal. Both are widowed and up in years. She suggests that they consider spending some nights together, talking in bed, an intimacy she misses and suspects he might as well. And so the story proceeds.

Over the course of this short novel their relationship grows. They become the subject of gossip in town and consternation from their children. Life happens, both good and bad.

Our Souls at Night is written beautifully. The language is befitting the wise, yet simple characters. I had the good fortune to listen to the book read by Mark Bramhall. If anything, his reading amplified the message. It has been years since I wanted anyone other than my children to read me a bedtime story. More so than any other audiobook I’ve listened to, this one was true artistry. Whether holding the book in hand or listening to Bramhall’s voice, Our Souls at Night warms the heart.

Kent Haruf died on November 30, 2014, shortly after completing this book. At its publication six months later it was heralded as a fitting swan song. If only we could all finish out our days so well.

Armenian Genocide Remembered in Fiction (Part 2)

Every man’s memory is his private literature.- Aldous Huxley

There was a timeliness to selecting a title about the Armenian genocide for a book group I work with. April, 24 2015 was the date selected to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of this horrible period. I suggested Chris Bohjalian’s, The Sandcastle Girls (see post Part 1) or Aline Ohanesian’s, Orhan’s Inheritance. To prepare to lead the conversation, I chose to read them both and came away with a far richer understanding of the multifaceted aspects of this tragedy than I would have if I’d only read one. Whichever you choose, your view of history will be changed.

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Orhan’s Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian (Algonquin Books, 2015)
In 40 words or less: Dialog and detailed descriptions provide personal views of the Armenian genocide and war against the British through the eyes of a young girl and a conscripted Turkish boy whose families long-lived side by side.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Locale: Ottoman Empire, California
Time: 1915-23 and 1990
Read this to gain an understanding of the complexities of life when neighbors were pitted against neighbor. Using her grandmother’s recollections as a starting point for her novel, Ohanesian writes of love, loss, inhumanity and compassion.

Continue reading Armenian Genocide Remembered in Fiction (Part 2)

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