Pursuing the free and untrammeled life of an artist in Paris, young Georgia Whyte, an aspiring painter, leaves her stodgy American Midwest home to find love and an inner rebirth in the Old World. 12,500 first printing.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Cosmopolitan and elegiac, Just's 10th novel (after The Translator ) is full of subtle delights and rewards. Structured as a flashback, the story begins with an accidental meeting in Paris between expatriate painter Georgia Whyte and self-exiled novelist Harry Forrest. The two reminisce about their near-romantic connection years ago in Chicago, after which Harry begins to reflect on Georgia's life. And an interesting saga it is, beginning with the painter's initial artistic breakthrough in California and her experience of a menage a trois with a young SoCal couple devoted to surfing. The second half of the novel finds Georgia in Paris, where she delves deeply into her creativity and slowly falls in love with a jazz pianist. The damaged, fragile Georgia proves both a memorable character and an ideal vehicle for Just's musings on love, desire and art as he weaves together past and present with a master's touch, preserving a sense of surprise throughout. By rendering the California scenes with a touch of grit, Just keeps the rest of his narrative from becoming too mannered, and his well-drawn male characters add depth and dimension to Georgia's artistic and personal development. This is a wonderful change of pace for Just, whose main bailiwick to date has been political fiction; here his writing exhibits new dimensions.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Consummate political novelist Just turns his fictive eye on the arts here, and this story of Georgia Whyte, an artist true to herself and her work, is as vivid and haunting as a Hopper painting. Growing up in Chicago, Georgia learned to drink and to see to the heart of things-and she met Harry Forrest, her boyfriend's older brother and a fledgling author who becomes a touchstone for her. Fiercely concentrated on her painting, she finds the light too soft in Southern California and the atmosphere too hard in Chicago. But in indifferent Paris she carves out a routine for her work and finds love-and one day in the Musee d'Orsay she runs into her old friend Harry, a successful former writer of mystery novels who tells her story and envies her triumph. With splendid characterizations, crisp dialog, and gemlike scenes that invite reading for sheer pleasure, this is a literary treat. For all fiction collections.
--Michele Leber, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Michele Leber, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
WARD JUST is the author of fifteen previous novels, including the National Book Award finalist Echo House, A Dangerous Friend, winner of the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for fiction from the Society of American Historians, and An Unfinished Season, winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Award and a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
John Cheever, Edith Wharton, and now Ward Just,
This review is from: AMBITION AND LOVE (Hardcover)
I discovered Ward Just with his novel, "Forgetfulness" and began to think that he has a rare talent for capturing the spirits of Americans abroad. Reading "Ambition and Love" about Americans in Paris has confirmed that view. I now think too that he lays open the lives of WASPs and WASPish America, at home and not, with an anthropologist's eye, one who studies and writes about his tribe with a distance, affection and insight that would be the envy of someone like Margaret Mead.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
decisions of the artist,
By
This review is from: AMBITION AND LOVE (Hardcover)
This is a well-written novel, the first I have read by Ward Just. It is rather understated, focusing on a single character and her decisions rather than having many dramatic events. Georgia Whyte works as an artist and ponders whether ambition compromises the act of painting for the love of painting, and whether catering to an audience would make her no more than an "entertainer". While one could wonder whether she makes the best decisions for her future, there is no doubt that she keeps her integrity. This book is the story of how she maintains her dedication to her work, while eventually opening herself to the possibility of dedication to another person.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Wonderful Book!,
By Last of the Book Readers (NY, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: AMBITION AND LOVE (Hardcover)
It seems to me that Ward Just must be one of the most under appreciated authors living today. Since first reading Echo House, I have poured through several of Ward Just's other novels, each just as powerful and wonderful as Echo House. Ambition & Love is fantastic. The characters are alive and real. The story never spins out of control, but maintains a steady, thoroughly engaging pace. I did not want it to end.
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