The Fountain of St. James Court or, ..., Sena Jeter Naslund
The Fountain of St. James Court or, ..., Sena Jeter Naslund
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The Fountain of St. James Court; or, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman Unab
A Novel

Author: Sena Jeter Naslund

Narrator: Barbara Caruso, Cynthia Darlow

Unabridged: 15 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 09/17/2013


Synopsis

"Is it a crime to live? To create happiness for yourself through your own work?"How do writers and painters get their ideas? And what are the hard realities of such seemingly glamorous and romantic lives? In her groundbreaking new novel, New York Times bestselling author Sena Jeter Naslund explores the transformative power of art, history, and love in the lives of creative women.It's midnight on St. James Court, at the heart of which is a beautiful fountain sculpture of Venus rising from the sea. Kathryn Callaghan has just finished the first draft of her novel about renowned painter Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, a survivor of the French Revolution who was hated for her sympathetic portraits of Marie Antoinette. Although the manuscript is complete, its author remains haunted by Élisabeth's experiences, which are revealed in Sena Jeter Naslund's ingenious novel-within-a-novel interleaved with the chronicle of a day in the life of Kathryn Callaghan. Despite being separated by time, place, and culture, Kathryn and Élisabeth possess similar gifts and burdens: uncompromising aesthetic codes, fierce pride in their artistic expression, and unwavering love and sacrifice for their children. And before the next midnight rolls around, Kathryn will have confronted personal danger as frightening as the butchery that Élisabeth faced during the Reign of Terror. Each woman will be called upon and tested; each will, like Venus, rise triumphantly above the expectations of her world.In this, her compelling and intimate ninth book, Sena Jeter Naslund presents the reader with an eye-opening alternate vision of The Artist: not an angry young man but a woman of age and hard-won experience who has created for herself, against enormous odds, a fulfilling life of thoroughly realized achievement.

About Sena Jeter Naslund

Sena Jeter Naslund is a cofounder and program director of the Spalding University (Louisville) brief-residency MFA in Writing, where she edits The Louisville Review and Fleur-de-Lis Press. A winner of the Harper Lee Award and the Southeastern Library Association Fiction award, she is the author of eight previous works of fiction, including Ahab's Wife, a finalist for the Orange Prize. She recently retired from her position as Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Louisville.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Susan on January 15, 2014

Sena Jeter Naslund's courageous juxtaposition of two stories, two time periods, two styles urges us to seek parallels between a modern day writer and an eighteenth century painter, the writer having just completed a novel of the painter, Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, court painter to Marie Antoinette. Wi......more

Goodreads review by Emily on September 05, 2013

Sena Jeter Naslund is a fantastic writer. She knows how to get into the soul of her characters so that her readers really connect with experiences and emotions. However, I was disappointed by this book. The pacing was tedious at times, and the plot seemed to drag. Points in the story that could have......more

Goodreads review by Julie on September 27, 2013

The most amazing thing about this book to me was how it captured the way writers and artists relate to each other across geography and time. While on the surface, it seems as if the two novels woven together so astonishingly in this book are not related, they are deeply linked. Fountain, set in in c......more

Goodreads review by Sarah on January 19, 2014

Ugh, this kills me because Ahab's Wife is easily one of my favorite books ever, literally. But this just pales in comparison. The Elizabeth portions are told with such a light touch by the character itself that I felt like all I did was skim over the waters of her life without truly feeling the dept......more

Goodreads review by J. on July 08, 2013

Ahab's Wife was the first book I read by Naslund. While the first chapters of this new book did not engage me as quickly as Ahab's Wife, I pressed on because of the power of Naslund's writing style. As a musician, writer, and novice painter, this book is a powerful read. Naslund has insights not only......more