Violet Clay: A Novel [Paperback]

Gail Godwin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 29, 2005

Violet Clay had come to New York City from Charleston to take the art world by storm. But nine years, many affairs, and thousands of drinks later, the reality of her shadow life is made clear when she is fired from her job as a freelance illustrator. That same day, she hears that her beloved Uncle Ambrose, an unsuccessful writer, has shot himself.

As Violet collects the shattered pieces of her uncle's life, she is forced to face herself and her own tattered dreams. And what she discovers is that she has just been going through the motions of living. She's not even sure she can do anything else. But she's in her mid-thirties and knows she still has time to try again. If she succeeds, she will have broken from her family of dreamers forever and can deservedly claim both the rich rewards and frustrating adversities of the artist's life....

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The plot of Godwin's novel finds the title character trying to get her life back in order following the suicide of her uncle and the collapse of her promising art career. As LJ's reviewer commented, Godwin "continues to be one of our most intelligent, engaging makers of fiction" (LJ 5/15/78).
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Review

"Violet Clay is filled with wonderful language, wonderful people and wonderful insights.... It is about families, destinies, terrors and exaltations...I will not soon forget it, It is the work of one of the very best writers we have"

-- Jonathan Yardley

The Miami Herald



"I love Gail Godwin's women. They are strong, intelligent, funny, often self-mocking. They are tough on themselves... fall into predictable pits, but expect everything of themselves"

-- Susan Shreve

The Washington Post

"A damned good, old-fashioned story...A modern portrait of an artist as a young woman...Remarkable."

-- Chicago Tribune

"Violet Clay shows Gail Godwin as a painterly writer and a very good novelist indeed."

-- Harper's

"Luminous...satisfying."

-- The Boston Globe

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (November 29, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 034538993X
• ISBN-13: 978-0345389930
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #858,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gail Godwin is a three-time National Book Award finalist and the bestselling author of twelve critically acclaimed novels, including Unfinished Desires, A Mother and Two Daughters, Violet Clay, Father Melancholy's Daughter, Evensong, The Good Husband, and Evenings at Five. She is also the author of The Making of a Writer: Journals, 1961--1963, the first of two volumes, edited by Rob Neufeld. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grants for both fiction and libretto writing, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has written libretti for ten musical works with the composer Robert Starer. She lives in Woodstock, New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Interior World of an Artist, May 3, 2010

By 

LH422 (Washington, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Violet Clay: A Novel (Paperback)

The story of a young artist's coming of age, Violet Clay explores a woman's efforts to come to terms with a life that has turned out quite differently from her expectations. Violet Clay, orphaned as a small child, shuffled through boarding schools, finds her adult self with only one family member to speak of, her uncle Ambrose, a troubled writer. Ambrose has never managed to finish his second book, and Violet has failed to become an artist of note. A move to New York brings Violet little success. Eight years after her move she finds herself stagnating at art, life, and love. When Ambrose commits suicide, Violet takes the opportunity to move to her uncle's remote upstate cabin to try and reinvent her life. Godwin does an excellent job of creating complex worlds around her characters, and Violet Clay is no exception. Violet's history and psyche are richly drawn, and Godwin deftly recreates Charleston, New York City, and upstate New York. I did find some of Violet's relationships to be somewhat tiresome. Indeed, Violet herself is tiresome, the poster child for a navel-gazing artist's personality. Still, this is an intruiging book: more interesting than the story of an artist trying to figure herself out might seem.