The Content Reader

A while ago I read Linda Lappin's historical fiction of Jeanne Hébuterne in  Loving Modigliani: The Afterlife of Jeanne Hébuterne .  I really loved how Linda Lappin makes historical persons come alive. I was happy to receive a copy of an earlier book by Lappin  Katherine's Wish , about the life of Katherine Mansfield.  It is a wonderfully written account on the latter part of Mansfield's life. For many years she was ill with tuberculosis and spent her time, restlessly travelling in Europe to find a climate suitable for her disease. France, Italy and Switzerland where the places where she stayed to escape the damp, English winter.  Although most of the novel covers Katherine's more intimate relationships, we meet some of the most famous writers of the day. Katherine had a close relationship with D.H. Lawrence and his wife, until Lawrence sends her a shocking letter. Her relationship with Virginia Woolf is also fragile, although they seem to go on well together, a...

It is already 10 July and this is my first post for Paris in July 2021. I am on the road in our camper van and it has been difficult to find time to blog. I have been reading a few books and made a French dinner so there are some posts coming up soon.  However, I would like to start with a book I read and reviewed in May. It is such a wonderful and interesting historical fiction of Jeanne Hébuterne who was the muse of Amedeo Modigliani. Linda Lappin has written a novel, not only of the life of the two artists, but also of Paris. We meet Paris in the past and present. Both are as exciting as they can be, although the past gives us a kind of magic and dark side of Paris.  "Amedeo Modigliani, embittered and unrecognized genius, dies of meningitis on a cold January day in Montparnasse in 1920. Jeanne Hébuterne, his young wife and muse, follows 48 hours later, falling backwards through a window. Now a ghost, Jeanne drifts about the studio she shared with Modigliani—for she was not ...

  "Amedeo Modigliani, embittered and unrecognized genius, dies of meningitis on a cold January day in Montparnasse in 1920. Jeanne Hébuterne, his young wife and muse, follows 48 hours later, falling backwards through a window. Now a ghost, Jeanne drifts about the studio she shared with Modigliani—for she was not only his favorite model, but also an artist whose works were later shut away from public view after her demise. Enraged, she watches as her belongings are removed from the studio and her identity as an artist seemingly effaced for posterity, carried off in a suitcase. Thus begins Loving Modigliani, retelling the story of Jeanne Hébuterne’s fate as a woman and an artist through three timelines and three precious objects stolen from the studio: a diary, a bangle, and a self-portrait of Jeanne depicted together with Modi and their daughter. A century later, Jeanne Hébuterne’s artwork will be rescued from oblivion." I am fascinating by historical fiction about artists. Th...