Some works of art are so iconic that the viewer can’t help but wonder about the backstory. Take, for example, “Christina’s World,” painted by Andrew Wyeth in 1948 and inspired by a woman named Christina Olson. The painting shows a young woman with her back to the viewer, lying in a vast field and looking up at a ­weather-beaten house and its smaller outbuildings. Though we can’t see her face, we get the impression that she’s yearning for something.

Christina Baker Kline’s superb new novel chronicles the constricted life of the woman Wyeth made famous. The Christina in Kline’s book used to yearn for things, but poverty and disability made her aware early on that some of the pleasures of life were not to be hers. We first meet her as a young child, on her sickbed. Yet, despite her challenges, the young Christina is smart, stubborn, resourceful and even physically brave. But bad luck, bad timing, other people’s bad decisions or bad faith shrink her life down to the old house and the plot of land it stands on. Alone in the house with her younger brother, her life is year after year of drudgery. Then Wyeth shows up and takes one of her upstairs rooms as a studio.

In case you’re wondering, no, Wyeth and Christina don’t fall in love and run away together. Wyeth’s most famous painting is deceptive; the real Christina was old enough to be his mother. What is forged between them is a tender connection and understanding.

The beauty of Kline’s writing and her grasp of her characters is such that at first you want to sink into this book like a warm bath. But she doesn’t allow her reader to get too comfortable. Christina is not a woman who accepts her disappointments with saintly forbearance. She is bitter, disappointed and occasionally spiteful. But the good-natured and talented young painter does not pity her—he sees her humanity.

Gentle and profound, A Piece of the World shows the healing power of simple, unexpected friendship.

This article was originally published in the March 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

All novelists are conjurers, ventriloquists and magicians, but Laird Hunt may be more so than most. In his last three novels, Hunt has inhabited the distinct voices of particular women so thoroughly and so comfortably that it’s possible, after you’ve turned the last page, to forget that the person you’ve just left behind was invented. His people follow you, like it or not.

Another remarkable thing about his novels is that, even though none of them could’ve been written by anyone other than Laird Hunt, no two sound the same. Some of his earlier books, like The Exquisite and Ray of the Star, are dreamy, trippy, ultramodern works of lyrical beauty and mystery, in which alert readers might detect an admiration for Paul Auster—but there’s also Indiana, Indiana, a simple, quiet tale narrated by an old man reflecting on an early love. As different as they are, his books share a richness of language and a vividness of imagery that can seriously blow the mind. Some of his characters speak coyly, some are forthright; many are first one and then the other, to devastating effect.

Hunt’s newest, The Evening Road, is the third in a loosely related trio of novels centering on strong female protagonists at different periods in American history. Neverhome (2014) introduces readers to Ash, aka Constance, a steely young woman who disguises herself as a man in order to fight in the Civil War. In Kind One (2012), most of the story is told by the tough-minded but not especially sympathetic wife of a slave owner in Kentucky; the second part of the story belongs to one of the young black women she used to torment.

The Evening Road follows a similar structure: It opens with Mrs Ottie Lee Henshaw, a spirited young white woman whose boss likes to drive her around and paw at her ineffectively. It's a summer night in 1930, and there’s news of a lynching in a nearby town called Marvel. Ottie Lee’s boss decides they’ll go see it. The lynching, which darkens the edges of the (somehow) often funny narrative, is based on a famous event that happened near where Hunt grew up in Indiana. (It provoked the poem and song “Strange Fruit.”) The second section is narrated by Calla Destry, a street-smart young black woman who is desperate to leave town, but not before having a frank conversation with her beau, a slippery, fast-talking political type.

It’s a road novel that starts from opposite ends of the same road. The characters travel the same miles, intercepting each other yet remaining always in their separate worlds. The harm caused by that separation is one of Hunt’s recurring subjects.

Though the three linked novels aren’t exactly a trilogy, they seem to haunt each other. Certain places and images turn up in all three, creating a sense of a complete world (as well as goosebumps). There’s no need to read them in any specific order, but if you read one, you’ll want to find the rest.

When he’s not making philosophical pronouncements or asking difficult questions, 13-year-old Attila Beck functions as the moral axis around which Joseph Kertes’ slender yet consequential new novel, The Afterlife of Stars, revolves. Kertes, a Hungarian refugee who escaped to Canada after the revolution of 1956, won the National Jewish Book Award for fiction for his previous novel, Gratitude, which also featured the Beck clan. In this book, set 11 years after the end of World War II in Budapest, it’s not the family’s Jewishness that constitutes the existential threat, but their Hungarian identity, as a revolution against Soviet control is brutally crushed in less than two weeks.

Playing Tonto to Attila’s Lone Ranger (and sometimes Estragon to his Vladimir), younger sibling Robert tells the tale of the family’s escape with a clear-eyed innocence that belies his experience as they are driven from Budapest to Paris to some unnamed Canadian destination.

Part of what makes the book so compelling is its sympathetic portrayal of political refugees at a time when they are frequently misunderstood at best, and demonized at worst. And while Hungary’s then-oppressor, the Soviet Union, no longer exists, recent Russian incursions into Ukraine (and Syria) offer a potent reminder of how, even in the course of a single novelist’s lifetime, history can repeat itself.

But the beating heart of this book is the relationship between Robert and Attila, a remarkable pair of brothers whose bond goes beyond affection, beyond shared history, beyond blood. They are two young men who, once met, you’ll never forget.

This article was originally published in the January 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

That in war the first casualty is the truth is no less true for being trite. Consider the fate of Mata Hari, a Dutch exotic dancer executed by firing squad during the Great War. At the time, the French public was all but united against her. But the evidence that she spied to any significant or damaging degree was as scant as her costumes. Bestselling author Paulo Coehlo (The Alchemist) takes up her case in his masterful new novel The Spy.

Mata Hari was the stage name of Margaretha Zelle. She had a tumultuous childhood. Both her parents died; at age 16 someone raped her. Upon reaching majority, Zelle married an officer and moved to the Dutch East Indies. While abroad Zelle learned Javanese dance. She and her husband divorced, while their two children died from inherited syphilis. Zelle then settled in the Paris of Stravinsky, the newly built Eiffel Tower and the Dreyfus case.

The belle époque was a time of European fascination with things Oriental, and Zelle became something of a sensation. Unfounded rumors abounded that she had Asian blood. People compared her to the biblical Salome. She became a courtesan, hobnobbing with artistic celebrities, including Picasso. 

Then came the war and poverty. And the opportunity to escape from poverty. The Germans offered Zelle 20,000 francs to convey information to them. The pseudonymous dancer now became "H21.” She passed nothing useful, but the French blamed her for the deaths of tens of thousands of soldiers. Zelle was defiant to the end, blowing a kiss to her executioners.

Coehlo lets Zelle tell her own story for the most part, although the man who tried to defend her relates the final chapters. Coehlo seeks to make the story an indictment of men, or mankind. Ours is a species too brutal and authoritarian to tolerate the spirited and emancipated, he seems to argue. But he also suggests Zelle is an unreliable narrator, leaving the idea open that she is partly to blame. She had a gift but was not free from vainglory, making her story as well one of pride before a fall.

Paris, a city unequivocally associated with romance, is front and center in Beatrice Colin’s latest novel, To Capture What We Cannot Keep, an unlikely love story involving the Eiffel Tower’s real-life engineer, Émile Nouguier, and a 30-year-old Scots widow.

We begin on a cold and rainy morning in February of 1887, inside a hot air balloon. Caitriona Wallace, known as Cait, is chaperoning the unconventional Arrol siblings as they tour Europe on their rich uncle’s dime. Émile and Cait’s chance meeting seems more awkward than electric, but leaves behind a spark.

Émile’s prestige and promising career is a stark contrast to Cait, whose gender, age and marital status point toward a grim and choiceless future. But love is not always reasonable—something Colin proves over and over again as Émile and Cait’s secret relationship advances.

Colin ably brings to life a time before the iron lattice of the Eiffel Tower became an iconic part of the Parisian landscape. To Capture What We Cannot Keep is part history lesson and part thrilling love story, leading to an ending full of depth, promise and hope.

This article was originally published in the December 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In 16th-century Italy, where goodness and beauty are believed to go hand in hand, blemishes on the skin are seen as physical manifestations of the state of one’s soul. So when Flavia is born with a lurid birthmark across her face, the girl is viewed as an object of horror. After years of rejection, on the eve of her sister’s wedding Flavia snaps and does something so terrible that she is banished to a convent. 

Here her path crosses with Ghostanza, a woman whose otherworldly beauty inspires reverence in women and men alike. She claims Flavia as her ornatrix (a lady’s maid), schooling her in the art of Renaissance-era beauty regimens and cosmetics. However, Ghostanza’s tutelage goes much deeper, teaching Flavia that physical perfection carries a hefty price. 

By drawing sly parallels between Flavia’s world and our own, debut novelist Kate Howard demonstrates that unattainable beauty standards are hardly new. But Howard’s true genius lies in her skillful interweaving of themes of beauty, self-acceptance and artifice versus authenticity into an immersive story. The meticulous research and rich world-building place Howard alongside masters of the genre like Sarah Dunant and Tracy Chevalier (though Howard isn’t afraid to take readers down more ominous paths). If the idea of The Picture of Dorian Gray with feminist leanings gives you a thrill, then The Ornatrix is for you.

This article was originally published in the December 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The 1979 new wave hit “Pop Muzik” had an infectious chorus that began: “New York, London, Paris, Munich.” PEN/Faulkner winner Sabina Murray sends her characters to all four of these locales—and many others—in her sprawling, colorful new novel.

Based on real-life events and people, Valiant Gentlemen opens in 1880s Africa and closes in postwar Paris, where Murray’s characters, and the world, have been changed utterly by World War I.

Murray’s tone is light at the outset. Englishman Herbert Ward and Irishman Roger Casement are in Belgian-ruled Congo, just two of many young, careless expeditionaries. They mingle with the local population and brainstorm about how to make money; Ward eventually decides to write for magazines about his time living amid “naked natives and cannibalism.” 

The story picks up steam with the introduction of Sarita Sanford, a sharp-tongued heiress who marries Ward. Casement, meanwhile, must deal with multiple identity crises: He is a revolutionary for Catholic Ireland, but a Protestant, and is often taken for an Englishman. He is also living a closeted gay life. Complex characters in exotic locales combined with Murray’s deft use of language (trees in Niger, for example, are described as having “crabbed fingers”) are the strongest aspects of Valiant Gentlemen.

The approach of World War I creates tension between Ward and Casement, and their differences build to an emotional, even wrenching climax. Valiant Gentlemen offers some sharp satire on culture clashes and colonialism. Casement even makes a flip remark about some “horror,” echoing the conclusion of Joseph Conrad’s African-journey classic, Heart of Darkness. Though a bit too long, Valiant Gentlemen is ultimately an impressive accomplishment, offering an immersive read for historical fiction fans.

This article was originally published in the November 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It is 1854, and Mexican singer Julia Pastrana is making her way to New Orleans to seek her fortune. Raised by an old nun after being abandoned by her mother, she has a good voice, is a decent dancer and speaks three languages. But her most singular feature is her thick black hair, which covers her entire body. Her strong jaw gives her an even more ape-like appearance.

Invited to join a traveling sideshow, Julia travels from city to city, remaining veiled in public between shows so as not to cause a panic. She’s billed as Troglodyte of Ancient Days, the Ugliest Woman in the World and Mujer Osa (Lady Bear). Audiences around first America and then Europe are captivated—they don’t know whether to be horrified or charmed by this intelligent, well-spoken woman who looks something other than human.

“She was the most extraordinary being that had ever existed on the face of this ridiculous earth,” author Carol Birch writes of Julia, a real-life historical figure. “Everyone said so. They wanted to see her, they wanted to meet her, everyone came, the great, the good, the scared, bewitched, bewildered, the willing and unwilling. And they paid.”

Julia is managed by Theo Lent, a down-on-his luck showman who eventually, improbably, falls in love with her. But even after they marry, he can’t quite get over his shame, writhing with discomfort at what others must think of him, the man who sleeps with an ape.

Orphans of the Carnival is a strange, transfixing novel. The gorgeously written story moves between Julia’s story and 1980s London, where a depressed woman named Rose is stockpiling (one might say hoarding) found objects in her small flat, to the dismay of those who love her. She picks up a small, burned-looking doll that she names Tattoo, whose bittersweet significance is not revealed until the very end of the novel.

“Am I human?” Julia asks a fortune-teller. “It’s possible to be human and not know it,” the woman replies. Orphans of the Carnival is about how we can find humanity in all fellow creatures, which is surely a message worth pondering now more than ever.

This article was originally published in the November 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.