Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jun 2007
352 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
In the summer of 1918, with the Germans threatening Paris, Edward Steichen arrives in France to photograph the war for the American army. France is full of poignant memories: his early artistic successes, his marriage, the births of his two daughters. But as he takes up his first command, he learns that his wife Clara has filed suit against her friend, the painter Marion Beckett, charging that she was Steichen's lover in the summer before the war.
Flying over the fields of France, Steichen struggles to understand what went wrong in his seemingly idyllic life. His search for answers takes him into his own complex past, toward a painful self-understanding and the discovery of new ways of seeing the world.
"Starred Review. Enriching her intensely psychological tale with cameos of Auguste Rodin and others. Mitchell evokes the spell of creativity and the pain of rupture when following one's vision severely complicates relationships." - Booklist.
"Starred Review. The book offers up glimpses of Paris and the French countryside, including memorable scenes of Steichen's visit to his good friend and mentor, sculptor August Rodin, but in the end, this commanding novel is about the images one can never quite burn from memory." - Publishers Weekly.
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Emily Mitchell was born 1975 in London, England, and was educated at Middlebury College as an undergraduate. She lived for many years in New York City where she obtained her Master of Fine Arts at Brooklyn College. Her stories have been published in Harper's, Ploughshares, New England Review, and elsewhere.
Mitchell is the author of the novel The Last Summer of the World. She resided in San Francisco, California, and is currently an Assistant Professor in the English Dept. at the University of Maryland.
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