Product Details
- Publisher: Vintage Canada (2019-02-05)
- Language: English
- Paperback: 416 pages
- ISBN-13: 9780735274679
- Item Weight: 374.22 grams
- Dimensions: 7.99 x 5.19 x 1.09 cm
This national bestseller is a surprising, rich and beautiful story about women's friendship for readers of Paula McLain and Elena Ferrante, by a bestselling non-fiction author who has brilliantly turned her hand to fiction.
Layered with insight into the nuances of female friendship as it stretches, changes, and deepens in unexpected ways over a lifetime, this book is set in the fascinating art world of Sweden between 1900 and 1940, loosely based on the lives of celebrated artists Carl Larsson and Anders Zorn ("Nils Olsson" and "Lars Vogt" in the novel), and the women who married them: restlessly creative artist-in-her-own-right Sofie Olsson, and fiercely private and intelligent curator Cecilia Vogt.
Woven effortlessly through this tapestry, like a beautiful motif, is absorbing detail about Scandinavian painting, design, and textile work; European history and sexual politics; the country life, city salons, vibrant art, and folklore of Sweden; and the secrets and challenges of bright, talented women juggling marriage, career, individual aspirations, and family life inside an artist's household in the early twentieth century.
About the Author
KATHERINE ASHENBURG is the author of three books and many magazine and newspaper articles. She has written for The New York Times, The Globe and Mail and Toronto Life, among other publications. Her books include The Mourner's Dance: What We Do When People Die, and The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History, which was published in twelve countries and six languages. In former incarnations, she was a producer at CBC Radio and was The Globe and Mail's Arts and Books editor. In 2012, she won a Gold Medal at the National Magazine Awards for her article on old age.
