An intriguing and unique story and very well written. I will be following this author.
Many thanks to Avid Reader Press and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I lovedddded this book!! Perfect to read in a day (my favourite thing!) and so clever and unique in structure.

I love anything that’s experimental in form, especially if it’s done well - and this was. I mean the story of a life told through museum wall labels, I just loved it.

There’s nothing confusing here, it works SO well, and is easy to follow. Engaging writing, smart premise and I absolutely loved Kitty as a character with gumption. I loved how much depth I felt we got even though each page had only a smattering of words - impressive!

This may not be for everyone, but I’m so into books with art themes, so I gobbled it up. With I had my own copy for my shelves. An exciting little slice of literature and I will absolutely read more from this author. Huge recommend!

This was such a fun/weird little book. I went to the store and looked at in person because its format is so unique. Basically a woman's life story told through museum plaques. V interesting!

(𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 @𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 #𝘨𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬.) I guarantee you have never read a book quite like 𝗢𝗡𝗘 𝗪𝗢𝗠𝗔𝗡 𝗦𝗛𝗢𝗪 by Christine Coulson. It is completely, totally, unquestionably unique. The story of one woman’s life, spanning the lion's share of the 20th century, is told in a most unusual way: entirely through museum wall labels. You read that right!⁣
⁣
Over the course of its roughly 200 pages the reader gets snippets of Kitty Whitaker’s life from childhood to old age, from the freedoms of youth through several marriages, and throughout, her wealth and privilege. This is not a character we get to know deeply, but in rapid succession, as each piece of art with her at the center is described, we come to know the trajectory of her life, who she was and what she accomplished. We learn less of her thoughts and feelings as that’s not the role of museum labels.⁣
⁣
𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘞𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘸 was 𝐬𝐨 𝐟𝐮𝐧 to read. I’m a museum lover, so this unusual format really appealed to me. It’s also a book I flew through, probably finishing in under two hours. The book is short with a lot of blank spaces to boot. It’s the perfect book to read when you’re looking for something just a little different…an ideal palette cleanser! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is a very different book. As a former curator, I greatly appreciate the art of the label (and am thankful I no longer have to write them!) and you do wonder how the skill can be applied in other ways. The labels in this book are pretty old school- the language is not accessible to the common person which we don't do in museums today, even at the Met! But she also doesn't get tempted to make them longer than they should be.

It was a very quick read but it didn't give much room to get deep into things. Although it is also fascinating she could tell as much as she could with the narrative form she chose. I felt like I got a quite good idea of Kitty. What might have helped is if she had done introductory and section labels as well which would have given more room for storytelling.

This will never be the type of books that will be read by book clubs and people will pass on to their moms. It's very niche. I see it more as an experimental book that a classic book and in that vein, I applaud her for trying and for getting as much of a traditional story through in this medium as she did. And in the age where you're screaming at editors to do their jobs cause some books are way too long, well, this editor is definitely safe.

This is the best work of historical ficiton I've read since The Postcard. This story, told through museum walls, is so fully unique and I don't think I'll ever forget it. It is short, but contains so much in such few pages. This is a protagonist I'll truly never forget.

THIS WAS SPECTACULARLY SCRUMPTIOUS... and I ate it up in less than three hours. I am SO THANKFUL to Avid Reader Press and Christine Coulson for sending me a physical ARC before this uniquely positioned narrative hits shelves on October 17, 2023.

One Woman Show details the inner workings and livelihood of Caroline Margaret Brooks Whitaker (known as Kitty) as she navigates her very privileged early life from a toddler into her old age. Told through the perspective of art captions at a museum, readers get an eloquent tour into daily happenings through short descriptions and time stamps.

Kitty, barren in having children, goes through husband after husband, following unfortunate passings due to war, illness, and accidents. She's kept busy by her "garniture" -- friends she's bullied and belittled through her childhood, manipulated with and by financial standings. She nabs a souvenir from each person out of her own curatorial angle.

Breathlessly written, Christine Coulson made historical fiction sassy and fun, and I never wanted this collection to end.

Thanks to Netgalley and Avid Reader Press for the advanced reader copy of One Woman Show, in exchange for this honest review

First, about me:
- I love many books and short stories that experiment with unique narrative formats
- I love short stories, especially those that paint a vivid portrait with the briefest amount of prose
- I love art museums and I often read the wall panels

So you'll understand why I thought I might fall in love with One Woman Show, but I only fell in like. I've spent a couple of days pondering why....

1) I thought the wall label format was playful and I was rooting for it to work, but it was the handful of pages where Coulson's stepped out of this format that I found the most intruiging. The other character's intimate conversations as they viewed the "collection" pieces were electric and I wanted more. The wall label vignettes felt like charcoal studies, the few pages of dialogue felt like colourful German Expressionist paintings - where the ugliness of the character's inner minds are visible to all

2) I like the trend of biopic films focusing on short periods of a famous person's life. I think films that try to encapture decades, in two hours, often pale in comparison. One Woman Show would have worked better for me if it explored a shorter period, in more depth.

3) It's 2023 and I think many of us have certain expectations when it comes to stories depicting the most privileged people in the world. I expected more critique than I read.


Recommended for:
- Those who enjoy light period dramas but are interested in trying something a little different, without having to worry about it being too "weird"
- AND those with a higher disposable income - this only takes 1-2 hours to read and is priced the same as novels 3-4 times its length

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
One Woman Show
by Christine Coulson

A short and snappy novel about Kitty Whitaker, whose life spans most of the 20th Century, born into Manhattan wealth, her purpose is decorative.

This author was a writer for the Met for 25 years. Her fluency in the language of Art is employed here to stunning effect, as she describes Kitty's life in snapshots from age 5 to 91, in the format of art labels.

It's stylish, creative and smart. I wondered how engaging this would be, but take my word for it, Kitty somehow leaps from the page in 3D, stroppily, outrageously, hilariously. If you are familiar with the way Jennifer Egan used PowerPoint slides to capture the narrative of a neurodiverse character in "A Visit From the Goon Squad", then you'll believe it possible to draw a fully fleshed character, a supporting cast, a strong sense of place and time and a compelling narrative arc from something as rigid and prescribed as a museum wall label format.

Hats off to @nyccoulson
for a truly unique structure that works on every level.

Publication date: 17th October 2023
Many thanks to #netgalley and #avidreaderpress for providing an ARC for review

#bookreview
#irishbookstagram #onewomanshow #christinecoulson #artliterature #5starread #literaryfiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Avid Reader Press/Simon and Schuster for this advance readers copy in exchange for an honest review. One Woman Show is a short book and tells the life of main character, Kitty, in the form of art placards (similar to what you might see under an art piece at a museum).

This book was a quick read and had a very unique structure. I enjoyed the time period in which it was written (end of the Gilded age, through WWI, the Depression, etc.) and we got to see Kitty’s life through her own placards and through that of her parents, her husbands, etc. The descriptions in these small vignettes matched very closely to what you might actually see in a museum and left a good deal of room for interpretation, which was fun in a story like this. Overall, while I found this book interesting to read and fun to go through, I think it was still a bit tough to get invested/thoroughly interested in the story, just given how short the vignettes were. Typically, I love short chapters but, I found this plus the mix with art descriptions a bit too much to fully sink into.

However, I could definitely see art history fans enjoying this particular book and would recommend it, if for nothing else than for the structure of the book. This is different from anything I’ve read and was fun to go along for the ride with!

A super interesting structure- the course of a woman’s life, as told in art placards. Really witty and insightful for being so short! I definitely want to check out her prior Metropolitan Stories.

I decided not to rate this one because I don’t think I “got” it enough.

This is an experimental novel that narrates a woman’s life through museum wall labels. She and those around her are described in vignettes and often metaphorically as if they are vases and such.

Personally, I found this very forgettable and not all that interesting beyond the gimmick. But I do think the book would reward a reader more familiar with art museums and art history.

There are some funny moments, and this is very short, so I did finish. But I don’t really have any deep thoughts about it! Just left kind of … huh.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

One Woman Show is a creative, clever short novel about the life of a wealthy woman living throughout the 20th century. What makes this book unique is that it is told entirely through museum wall labels. Author Christine Coulson, whose previous job was writing wall labels for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, manages to craft a fully three-dimensional character using only short vignettes. She brings to life a woman who takes charge of her own story and does so in a way that brings up questions of the meaning of art and what stories are told.

One Woman Show. I love efficient character sketches in fiction.This show-stoppingly creative novel is all short, perfect evocations of character.  A clever fictional biography of a society woman in New York City in most of the last century, but the method is to describe her at each phase of her life as a description card mounted next to an artwork in a museum. The reader has some leeway to decide what is being described. At first I imagined these were photos but a closer look at the cover decided me that they are porcelain figurines, described in words that could apply to vases – but it doesn't really matter.  In single paragraphs, each person (mostly the woman nicknamed Kitty, but also her husbands, lovers and close family and friends) are depicted in their good, bad, strong, frail, stereotypical and banal glory. Kitty, born into wealth and a Smith college drop-out after a rich man proposes to her, lives generally a life of privilege and social competition but also marked by heartbreak and rebellion.

It's a great read when a high creative concept is married with perfect execution, and that is how I see this delightful book. Coulson, who spent a long career at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has the chops to do it and I am so glad I read it. Short read as each page has just one paragraph on it. Wish it was illustrated! 

Thanks #netgalley #christinecoulson, @simonandschuster for this advance e-copy. To be published in October. #onewomanshow #metropolitanmuseumofart

This book was a quick, delightful and utterly unique read. I devoured it all in one sitting and adored the new and creative format of the story, being told through museum wall labels. The novel follows Kitty, a woman born into wealthy American society in the early 20th century. We are taken on a journey through Kitty’s long and very eventful life, in which she lives through both wars, two dead husbands and one divorce but no children. She had an affair with Picasso and owned an original Braque. I loved the format of this novel, and I think it fit perfectly with the story and was able to tell it well. The labels were very believable, the language used was exactly the kind that you would find in a museum under a masterpiece! I adored the prose, and the easy way I was able to fully consume this novel through vignettes. My only criticisms would be that, in making the ‘labels’ so realistic, I found it very hard to understand a lot of the vocabulary and sentances as they used so much art-world and scholarly language.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about strong, indépendant women and novels that span an entire lifetime.
Thank you NetGalley and Avid Reader Press for this ARC