A Piece of the World

That year I discovered  The Silent Book Club. The idea is simple - people who love books and want to read books, sometimes gather together and sometimes talk about them.   I went to one event in my town - but it was a bust.  However, there is a thriving and interesting Facebook group. I've been reading people's recommendations and engaging in some conversations about books.  It was through the Facebook group that I read about A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline, who also wrote The Orphan Train.

One of my very favorite authors is Susan Vreeland, who often writes about art and artists.  I heard her speak at NCTE one year and she read part of Life Studies and I was hooked. I loved and reread her book Luncheon of the Boating Party, which tells the story, based on research, of the painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.  I enjoy considering the stories behind the works of art that I admire - like Clara and Mr. Tiffany which tells the story of the women who designed and worked at the Tiffany light company, but got no credit for their art and work.

A Piece of the World is in the same style - the author researched the people and places that influenced the painting by Andrew Wyeth called Christina's World.   It shows a young woman in a pink dress in a field crawling and reaching toward a large colonial farmhouse.  The artist spent summers with the subject of the painting, Christina Olson. Using a non-linear narrative, Kline traces Christina's story from her grandmother's stories of their family in Salem, through her childhood, first love, death of her parents, and introduction of Andrew Wyeth, the artist.  At times, it was hard to track the story as each chapter shifted time periods.  It was also fairly bleak - as the once thriving bed and breakfast at the colonial farmhouse dwindles to just Christina and her brother Alvaro.