The Art of Her Life

a novel

by Cynthia Newberry Martin

This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.

Buy on Amazon Buy on BN.com Buy on Bookshop.org

*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.

Pub Date Jun 06 2023 | Archive Date Jan 31 2024

Fomite

Arts & Photography | General Fiction (Adult) | Literary Fiction

Talking about this book? Use #TheArtofHerLife #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!

Description

At nine years old, on her first visit to a museum, Emily fell in love with Breakfast, a painting by Henri Matisse. Now a single mother, she lives in the world of art and can barely find time for her two daughters, much less for Mark, the man she loves. Her days are a jumble—she’s lost the thread of her life—but a contest at the museum where she’s the registrar gives her hope—the chance to see Breakfast again. Matisse’s words and paintings permeate her days and nights, and glancing at a note card of the painting she loves, she sees something she’s never seen before. The Art of Her Life shows the power of art to transform an ordinary life.

Advance Praise

"An unsentimental, luminous story about art, illness, and complicated relationships." Kirkus Reviews

"A bold transcendent meditation on desire, memory, motherhood, and the power of art to remake a life."—Dawn Tripp, author of Georgia, a novel of Georgia O’Keeffe

"The splendid prose is tinted with the inimitable melancholy of Matisse's blue." —Howard Norman, author of The Ghost Clause

"In The Art of Her Life, Cynthia Newberry Martin shows how the unexpected turns of a life can most often only be steadied and moored by what we hold deepest inside." —Adam Braver, author of Rejoice the Head of Paul McCartney

"Cynthia Newberry Martin paints in this novel a lasting portrait of love and family, of love and perseverance, of love and beauty and care and heart." —William Lychack, author of Cargill Falls

"Matisse's art is a character in this gorgeous book." —Lindsey Mead, editor of On Being Forty(ish)

"An unsentimental, luminous story about art, illness, and complicated relationships." Kirkus Reviews

"A bold transcendent meditation on desire, memory, motherhood, and the power of art to remake a...