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54
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
91/100Critics
17/100Scholars
Author:
Celia Paul
Publisher:
New York Review Books
Date:
April 26, 2022
With original artworks throughout, an extraordinary fusion of memoir and artistic biography from the acclaimed artist and author of "Self-Portrait."
What The Reviewers Say
... these are intimate letters, their author seemingly having taken to heart Colette’s writing advice (look at what gives you pleasure, but look longest at what gives you pain), and it’s this that enables me to forgive, if not quite to overlook, the rather fey idea of a one-sided conversation with a woman who died in 1939.
... excellent.
The conceit takes some time to bed in. The first letter, straining with forced intimacy, is at points embarrassing to read.
Although some of the emotional traumas here will be familiar to readers of Paul’s previous volume, it is Gwen John’s life as much as her own that is the focus of this book. The intense stillness, calm and beautifully modulated tones of John’s painting give little clue to a life of roiling emotion and fiercely driven passion.
