First published 2021
Denis arrives in Nice with questions about his mother that have haunted him for years. She kept secrets, and he knows only fragments of her story. In the French Riviera city, he tracks down Monique and Clemence, two women who knew his mother decades earlier. During the 1950s, both worked as assistants to the aging Henri Matisse, helping the master artist create his famous paper cutout works. They pinned his colored shapes to walls and assembled the pieces that would become his final masterpieces. Monique served as inspiration for Matisse's designs in the Vence chapel. Clemence pursued a dangerous love affair that ended in violence and tragedy. Now elderly themselves, these women carry memories of that vibrant, tumultuous time. They also hold the answers Denis seeks about his own origins. As he listens to their stories, Denis prepares to confront truths that will reshape everything he believed about his family and himself.
Genres: art, 20th-century, biographical-fiction, art-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: France, French Riviera, Nice
Period: 1950s, 20th-century
272 pages · Hardcover · Sandstone Press