Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan by Deborah Reed

If she told her family the truth, death would get on everything.~from Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan by Deborah Reed

Secrets. Children who don't really know their parents. Parents who don't really know their children. Trauma, consciously forgotten or unspoken, eating their souls.

Ninety-one-year-old Violet Swan's secret was not just the cancer killing her; guilt had dogged her life since a girl. A fire had killed her beloved father and sister. Evil men took advantage of the unprotected child. She escaped, a teenage vagabond crossing the country to the West Coast, pursuing a fragile dream of finding her place in the world.

Violet became famous for her abstract paintings. She lived in her art studio tower, her loving husband Richard protecting her solitude and running her business.

Their son Frank (Francisco, named for Francisco Goya) grew up imprisoned in himself, his silence smothering his marriage, his dutiful wife growing increasingly resentful. Their son Daniel had loved his Grand, Violet, but also felt his father's distance and had stayed away from home for years, living in LA as a filmmaker.

An earthquake begins the story, a premonition of the changes that will shake their relationships nearly to the breaking point. Daniel returns home bearing a secret. Violet finally agrees to allow her grandson to make a film interview; she will spill her secrets at last.

Deborah Reed saturates Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan with visual details, seen through an artist's eye. Music and literature enrich Violet's life.

Violet's story is unravelled throughout the novel, lending an urgency to keep reading, like a mystery novel; we want to understand the intricacies of life experiences that have brought this family to crisis.

I will warn that Violet's life includes trigger events. Violet is a survivor, a resilient woman. She finds salvation in the beauty of this world and in her art that endeavors to capture it.

Frank is mired in anger, addicted to television news. "How on earth was a person supposed to live a normal life?" he wonders, in despair.

Into their lives comes a small child and she changes everything and everyone.

An ordinary happiness runs through me...This is everything beautiful, this is love. Are you listening? Do you hear?~from Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan by Deborah Reed

I was very taken by this novel that glows under Reed's capable hands and beautiful writing.

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

from the publisher: 

The story of a famous abstract painter at the end of her life—her family, her art, and the long-buried secrets that won’t stay hidden for much longer.

 Ninety-three-year-old Violet Swan has spent a lifetime translating tragedy and hardship into art, becoming famous for her abstract paintings, which evoke tranquility, innocence, and joy. For nearly a century Violet has lived a peaceful, private life of painting on the coast of Oregon. The “business of Violet” is run by her only child, Francisco, and his wife, Penny. But shortly before Violet's death, an earthquake sets a series of events in motion, and her deeply hidden past begins to resurface. When her beloved grandson returns home with a family secret in tow, Violet is forced to come to terms with the life she left behind so long ago—a life her family knows nothing about.

 A generational saga set against the backdrop of twentieth-century America and into the present day, Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan is the story of a girl who escaped rural Georgia at fourteen during World War II, crossing the country alone and broke. It is the story of how that girl met the man who would become her devoted husband, how she became a celebrated artist, and above all, how her life, inspired by nothing more than the way she imagined it to be, would turn out to be her greatest masterpiece.

 Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan: A Novel of a Life in Art
By Deborah Reed
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication October 6,  2020
ISBN: 9780544817364
paperback and audiobook  $15.99 (USD); $9.99 ebook

Rita Blitt Around and Round

The viewer needs to be as creative in viewing a work of art as the artist was in creating it~Irwin Blitt

I was drawn to this book by the cover art, so joyous and uplifting. I had not encountered Rita Blitt or her art before reading Rita Blitt: Around and Round.

The cover art is a detail of "Celebrating Fall in Aspen", 2003. The landscape is reduced to near abstraction, yet the lines and color combine in a recognizable image of autumnal color against a blue sky.

The accompanying essays gave me insight into Blitt's life, how her art developed over her career, and an understanding of her art.

The book features art donated to the Mulvane Art Museum at Washburn University in Topeka, KS. 

I loved her early work "The Red Barn", the impressionistic style and vivid colors broken by the geometric division of a fence.

The Red Barn, 1958, by Rita Blitt

"Fir Trees in Aspen" recalls a dark forest dappled with sunlight as if highlighting hope in our darkest moment. 

Fir Trees in Aspen

Inspired by music, in the late 1990s Blitt began working with two hands. It allowed Blitt to be more centered. She communicates movement into her work, especially in response to dance and music. 

Hope by Rita Blitt

Celebrating Dorianna, 1996, Rita Blitt

Jamie Metzl writes in the essay Rita's Legacy, "The right way to look at these images is slowly and carefully, taking in the simple complexity of shape and color until you start to feel your heart lightening, an innocent joy bubbling up from inside of you."

As I studied Blitt's art, I knew I had encountered a soul filled with joy, and open to the creative and emotional life. The more I study her art, the more I see.

I was impressed to learn about the Kindness Program, which Blitt organized in 1990. Students write essays to nominate
individuals and groups for the Kindest Kansas Citian Award and Rita Blitt Kindest School Award.

Red, Yellow and Blue sculptures at the Rita Blitt Sculpture Garden, Mulvane Museum, Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas.

I won a free ebook from the publisher through a Publisher's Weekly giveaway. My review is fair and unbiased.

See pages from the book at the publisher's website here and eighteen pages at Amazon.com here. Visit Blitt's Facebook page here.

from the publisher

Rita Blitt: Around and Round is an overview of more than sixty years of work by Rita Blitt (b. 1931), a renowned contemporary American artist. Blitt’s dynamic body of work is distinguished by the sense of joy expressed through her pieces—sculptures, paintings, drawings, video, and more. Her work has been showcased in more than 70 one-person exhibitions and has been acquired by many museums and private collections. Her sculptures, some of them as tall as 60 feet, can be found throughout the U.S. and in Japan, Australia, and Singapore

The book presents a thoughtful selection of Blitt’s artwork, with a particular focus on the paintings and drawings that form the core of her studio practice and that are often studies for her highly acclaimed sculptures. More than 100 color plates and reproductions are included in these pages, along with essays by scholars and colleagues that provide context and interpretations of Blitt’s work and practice

Rita Blitt: Around and Round
Connie Gibbons, Editor
Mulvane Art Museum
$45.00 Trade Edition
Publication Date: September 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7322978-4-5

The Story of Frida Kahlo by Susan B. Katz

Born with a birth defect, a polio victim as a child, her body smashed in a tragic accident, Frida Kahlo's indomitable spirit overcame everything that life had thrown at her. The eclipsed wife of a larger-than-life artist, those who knew them both believed she was the better artist. 

Katz took on a big job in writing a children's book about a woman who contended with society, love, and the art world to reap world recognition in her brief 47 years. 

Katz's Frida is vulnerable yet strong and young readers will find her life romantically tragic and inspirational. 

The story of Frida's final exhibition is especially moving. A bed was brought into the exhibition hall so she could attend the opening days before her death.

detail of illustration from The Story of Frida Kahlo by Susan B. Katz

The book focuses on the use of art as therapy, self-expression, and connecting to the female experience, showing how creativity can give us strength and a voice.

Katz includes teaching aids including a glossary, timelines, content questions, and discussion starters.

Ana Sanfelippo's colorful illustrations enrich the volume, bringing Frida's life alive to young readers.

The Story of Frida Kahlo: A Biography for New Readers
by Susan B. Katz
Rockridge Press
$6.99 paperback
ISBN-10: 1646111605
ISBN-13: 978-1646111602
Grades 1-3

Susan B. Katz is a teacher, educational consultant, and author. She has also written The Story of Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

This Is How It Begins by Joan Dempsey

"Compulsively readable, This Is How It Begins is a timely novel about free speech, the importance of empathy, and the bitter consequences of long-buried secrets." from the publisher

Only six years ago I saw a Christian church undergo a vicious split. It involved attacking the denomination for a social creed they deemed too liberal and the pastor as heretical for not leading their withdrawal from the denomination. Their main point of contention was over abortion, although they also were vocal about homosexuality.

A majority of the church members left the denomination to start a community church, but first, they tried to take over, then destroy, the church they had been members of for many years. It was shocking how individuals viciously attacked others while
professing a Bible-based faith.

My husband was the pastor of that church. It was that experience that prompted me to request this novel.

This Is How It Begins by Joan Dempsey was an emotional read, full of believable and fully realized characters, doctrinal idealists and victims of prejudice and hate. I loved how characters showed themselves to be different from what we expected from them.

Art professor Ludka Zeilonka had survived Nazi Poland while saving Jewish children and hiding drawings documenting the occupation. She immigrated to America with her husband Izaac, who became the first Jewish attorney-general in Massachusetts. Their son Lolek is the state's most powerful senator, and his son Tommy is a well-liked high school English Teacher, married to lawyer Richard.

Tommy, along with thirteen other teachers, were all fired on the same day. The one thing they have in common is their sexual orientation. Tommy and his family become the target of hate crimes of increasing violence.

Influential Pastor Royce has an agenda and political ambitions. He is supported by radio host Warren Merck in a campaign to restore America to its Christian roots. They are behind the mass firing of teachers. Politically savvy, their defense is that Christian students feel marginalized and pressured against expressing their beliefs while being forced to accept the 'homosexual agenda' promoted by the fired teachers.

Merck is appalled by the rising violence, Tommy beaten in front of his house and his grandparent's home set on fire.

Ludka and Izaac return to their hometown in Poland, an emotional journey into a past they have tried to forget. Lukda finds the Jewish boy her family had protected and learns his devastating secret.

Ludka suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome. What is happening to Tommy is too much like what she experienced in Poland, too much like how the Holocaust began.

The topic of the novel, sadly, is more relevant today than ever: How can conflicting belief systems learn to live together? What does it mean to be protected under the law?

This is an amazing novel.

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

This Is How It Begins
by Joan Dempsey
She Writes Press
Publication October 17, 2017
ISBN: 9781631523083

War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans

The "battle between the transcendent" and the "memory of death and destruction" is eloquently shared through the life of Urbain Martien, the author's grandfather, in War and Turpentine, a book called a "future classic" by the Guardian.

Thirty years after inheriting his grandfather's papers Stefan Hertmans finally read the memoirs. Urbain's early life in poverty drove him into the Ghent steel mills as a teenager. Then came the sudden epiphany that he, like his father who restored church murals, must be an artist. Urbain joins the Flemish Military Academy and is called up to service and into the horror of The Great War.

"How far I have strayed from what I once hoped to become."

Germany wanted a quick route to Paris, and neutral Belgium was in the way. When Belgium resisted, the German army invaded, murdering whole villages. The Rape of Belgium left 6,000 civilians dead, 1.5 million refugees, and 120,000 civilians used as forced labor. The military lost 100,000 or more dead.

Hertmans' retelling of his grandfather's story is in three sections: the author's personal memories and his grandfather's early life; the brutal war years; the post-war years as Urbain cobbles together a life. The war section, for me, was most powerful with its vivid descriptions of death and suffering, the piles of human waste in the trenches, Urbain's honorable bravery and multiple injuries, the absurd carnage of human lives.

                       "We're all cannon fodder together."

And yet there are moments when Urbain sees nature's beauty, the artist's eye still seeking out the inspiration of color and form and association.

After the war Urbain cobbles together a life: love, loss, and loneliness; the frailty of the body; and the accomplishment of one great original painting.

"What mattered most to him was something he could not share with others. So he painted trees, clouds, peacocks, the Ostend beach, a poultry yard, still lifes on half-cleared tables--an immense, silent, devoted labour of grief, to put the world's weeping to rest in the most everyday things. He never painted a single war scene."

The novel is an international best seller.

I received a free ebook through Penguin First to Read in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

War and Turpentine
Stefan Hertmans