by Shena Mackay
First published 1998
After her artist husband's death, Margaret finds herself alone with canvases, memories, and questions she never dared ask while he lived. The house that once buzzed with creative energy now holds only silence and the weight of unfinished paintings. As she sorts through his work and prepares for a posthumous exhibition, Margaret discovers sketches and letters that reveal a side of her husband she never knew. Friends and collectors circle like vultures, each claiming to understand his vision better than she does. Meanwhile, her own long-suppressed desires begin to surface. Margaret must decide whether to preserve the carefully constructed image of her husband's genius or expose the complicated man behind the myth. In doing so, she faces the harder question of who she herself might become.
Genres: art, literary-fiction, contemporary, biographical-fiction, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Period: 20th-Century
Paperback · Jonathan Cape