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“Later he told me that he’d been afraid to show me the painting. He thought I wouldn’t like the way he portrayed me: dragging myself across the field, fingers clutching dirt, my legs twisted behind. The arid moonscape of wheatgrass and timothy. That dilapidated house in the distance, looming up like a secret that won’t stay hidden."
To Christina Olson, the entire world was her family’s remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. Born in the home her family had lived in for generations, and increasingly incapacitated by illness, Christina seemed destined for a small life. Instead, for more than twenty years, she was host and inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth, and became the subject of one of the best known American paintings of the twentieth century.
As she did in her beloved smash bestseller Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline interweaves fact and fiction in a powerful novel that illuminates a little-known part of America’s history. Bringing into focus the flesh-and-blood woman behind the portrait, she vividly imagines the life of a woman with a complicated relationship to her family and her past, and a special bond with one of our greatest modern artists.
Told in evocative and lucid prose, A Piece of the World is a story about the burdens and blessings of family history, and how artist and muse can come together to forge a new and timeless legacy.
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Book ID:
Title : A Piece of the World
Author : Christina Baker Klein
Pages : 309
Genre : historical fiction, biographical fiction
Published year : 2018
Language : English
Between the historical fiction author, which one do you like better? Christina Baker Klein or Kristin Hannah?
Christina Baker Klein rose to fame because of Orphan Train, meanwhile Kristin Hannah because of Nightingale. However, both authors have a very distinguished style and topics when it comes to writing.
A Piece of the World is another historical fiction or maybe..to be exact biographical fiction of a woman as a muse in the famous Andrew Wyeth’s painting,’ Christina World’.
I read several times about Andrew Wyeth’s work, but to be honest, not aware of how famous ‘Christina World’ is. Yet, I am not keeping up with modern paintings.
Setting in Cushing, Maine, a beautiful town by the sea where winter is bitterly cold. Setting in the late 1800 and early 1900, there is Hathorn House, erect beautifully over the hill that stands generations after generations. There, our protagonist was born, Christina. She caught a mysterious illness when she was a child and was unable to walk or perform normally from then.
But Christina's life still goes on. She was a bright girl with a bright future ahead. But just like a woman in that era, her family decide to stop pursuing her study at the age of 12. She was needed at home, taking care of their big home, farm, and family.
In her early years, her family tries to bring her to the doctor in the town, but even she refused to do so. Stubborn and proud, she decides to make a peace with her condition.
The story is back and forth between Christina in mid-1900 (1930s-1950s) to her early childhood. The present Christina met Andrew Wyeth for the first time thru Betsy-his future wife. And look at the house, Andrew decides to stay at the house at noon during summertime, to gather inspiration around the house.
In the first half of the book, the pace is very slow and mostly about how domestic life could be in that era. I keep stalling reading the book until the teenage Christina met the love of her life for the first time. Then the pace is changed to a page-turner.
Up until the last page of the book, I have a very mixed feeling. I really really dislike Christina’s character. In many ways, her proud and stubborn character get in the way of improvement. Even she was a child, and the climax is when she throws a tantrum when Al brings a girl home for the first time. I almost throw the book because I really don’t understand her T_T.
Then I read the author’s note, that Christina is exists, and the author tried her best to match with the true event, and some parts should leave at the author’s interpretation and imagination. That, I finally let go of the Christina character. So, yes, I don’t read the blurbs, didn’t know that Christina is really a person.
There is a part that left me questioned, like why suddenly Ramona is no longer in the story (or I just skipped?).
Overall, the half-end of the book is a page-turner. Because the puzzle starts to assemble and the story takes a pace. To be honest, I think there is not enough justice why Christina behaves like that. Yes, she seeks redemption at last, but it is better if the Author provides more reasons.
The domestic life without electricity and mundane life took a lot portion especially in the first half of the book to get the reader sense of life's difficulty back then. But……………….
However, it is a good read! This time, Christina only uses the first person narrator point of view, but still back-and-forth plot like in Orphan Train. I recommend this book to anyone who loves semi-biographical stories or historical-fiction addicts (like me).
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