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A dazzling novel of one of America's most celebrated photographers, Dorothea Lange, exploring the wild years in San Francisco that awakened her career-defining grit, compassion, and daring.
In this novel of the glittering and gritty Jazz Age, a young aspiring photographer named Dorothea Lange arrives in San Francisco in 1918. As a newcomer—and naïve one at that—Dorothea is grateful for the fast friendship of Caroline Lee, a vivacious, straight-talking Chinese American with a complicated past, who introduces Dorothea to Monkey Block, an artists' colony and the bohemian heart of the city. Dazzled by Caroline and her friends, Dorothea is catapulted into a heady new world of freedom, art, and politics. She also finds herself falling in love with the brilliant but troubled painter Maynard Dixon. As Dorothea sheds her innocence, her purpose is awakened and she grows into the artist whose iconic Depression-era "Migrant Mother" photograph broke the hearts and opened the eyes of a nation.
A vivid and absorbing portrait of the past, The Bohemians captures a cast of unforgettable characters, including Frida Kahlo, Ansel Adams, and D. H. Lawrence. But moreover, it shows how the gift of friendship and the possibility of self-invention persist against the ferocious pull of history.
"Historical readers will treasure this engaging story ... Darznik deftly depicts Lange's transformation into a renowned photographer." —Library Journal
"A powerful novel about a woman who shuns convention to follow her passion." —Kirkus Reviews
"Darznik is adept at depicting Dorothea's evolving worldview as well as San Francisco a decade after the earthquake, a 'world of raw possibility,' especially for women artists." —Publishers Weekly
"Modern echoes abound in a city under a pall of economic turmoil and racial disharmony advanced by politicians for their own ends as well as the global influenza pandemic. Darznik has created an arresting portrait of two women set before an illuminating backdrop." —Booklist
"Dorothea Lange once famously said, 'Art is an act of total attention.' Jasmin Darznik's breathtaking novel The Bohemians accomplishes that and more. Not only did it have me riveted from start to finish, through her words, history powerfully speaks to the present moment." —Lara Prescott, author of The Secrets We Kept
"A beautiful literary portrait of the one and only Dorothea Lange. Jasmin Darznik expertly delivers in this intriguing glimpse into the woman behind those unforgettable photographs of the Great Depression's impact on humanity. Highly readable and utterly relevant to our times. I was transported." —Susan Meissner, bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things
This information about The Bohemians was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jasmin Darznik is the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother's Hidden Life and Song of a Captive Bird. Her books have been published in seventeen countries. She was born in Tehran, Iran, and came to America when she was five years old. She holds an MFA in fiction from Bennington College, a JD from the University of California, and a PhD in English from Princeton University. Now a professor of English and creative writing at California College of the Arts, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.
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