From Booklist
Here is an absorbing, well-written mix of romance and melodrama that reserves its most passionate passages for the role of art in our lives. Fine-art auctioneer Catherine Sergeant is devastated upon learning that her seemingly happy marriage was a fraud. Her husband, a repressed businessman, walks out on her without a word. Retreating into her work, she meets architect John Brigham, and the two discover a shared fascination with the work of Richard Dadd, an early Victorian painter who did most of his best work while incarcerated in an insane asylum. Interspersed with the story of Catherine and John's increasingly intense relationship are episodic scenes of Dadd at work in the asylum, painting incredibly detailed works depicting ambition, agony, and raving madness. McGregor carefully and delicately weaves into her plot the idea that art is a conduit for the emotions, casting it variously as a therapeutic tool and as an expression of our darkest impulses. The author is at her most lyrically persuasive when detailing her overarching theme: a life without art is no life at all. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“Here is an absorbing, well-written mix of romance and melodrama that reserves its most passionate passages for the role of art in our lives…. McGregor carefully and delicately weaves into her plot the idea that art is a conduit for the emotions, casting it variously as a therapeutic tool and as an expression of our darkest impulses. The author is at her most lyrically persuasive when detailing her overarching theme: a life without art is not life at all.”—Booklist
“An intriguing, ambitious literary work that will reward."—Kirkus Reviews
From the Hardcover edition.
“An intriguing, ambitious literary work that will reward."—Kirkus Reviews
From the Hardcover edition.
