Paris, 1926. An aging Mary Cassatt, eyesight failing, searches through the clutter of her art studio for a bundle of lost letters. The sight of them—bound in silk ribbon, fading and difficult to make out—takes her back to her fateful introduction to Edgar Degas and to the love and heartbreak that followed. In her novel, I ALWAYS LOVED YOU, Robin Oliveira, author of the New York Times bestselling My Name Is Mary Sutter, tells of the tumultuous and passionate relationship between these two celebrated artists of the Impressionist movement.
Forty-nine years earlier, after the Civil War, a young Mary Cassatt moves from Philadelphia to Paris to pursue a life as an artist. It proves difficult: along with her father’s outspoken disapproval of her way of life, Mary struggles to support herself with her meager earnings from painting and suffers the shame of rejection from the Paris Salon, where all of France’s most prominent artists exhibit. Then one day, a friend introduces Mary to the artist Edgar Degas, and her art—and life—are changed forever.
Edgar proves to be mercurial and temperamental; he is, in turns, charming and insolent, prone to selfishness and wounding remarks, but also charismatic, captivating, and inspiring. As artistic collaborators, friends, antagonists, and, presumably, lovers, Mary and Edgar forge an impassioned relationship that deeply impacts the nature of their art and defines both of their lives.
I ALWAYS LOVED YOU brilliantly recreates the irresistible world of Belle Époque Paris, capturing the golden age of Impressionism and peopled with many prominent figures of the movement including Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot (the only other prominent female artist working in Paris at that time) whose own romantic relationship is also the subject of gossip and scandal. Robin Oliveira writes with grace and uncommon insight into the lives of artists and the passions and foibles of the human heart.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robin Oliveira holds a BA in Russian and studied at the Pushkin Language Institute in Moscow. She received an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is also a registered nurse, specializing in critical care. She lives in Seattle, Washington.
This event will be held at the DeKalb County Public Library in Decatur.
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